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It took me about 30 minutes to get it set up when I took it out of the box. All of my drawers now have half blind dovetails and my customers love them. The first cuts were perfect. If you use the indent that is on the template you can't go wrong. I purchased the 4212 at a tradeshow a couple of months back.Sorry Amazon.
If you have gone through the trial and error of the $75.00 Crafstman jigs to the $300.00+ Leigh Jigs and have been frustrated with your esults this is the machine for you. My jig was in great shape and felt very secure. What use to take me five hours to make I can now do in 2. The issue that others have reported with the template was resolved with a quick sanding with a steel wool abrasive pad on my random orbit sander and a small spray of Top Cote. The machines is extremely user friendly and very easy to set up.
I screwed it to my workbench and started a test piece. Works as smooth as glass. I leave mive set up for 5/8" thick drawer sides and have a router dedicated for the sole purpose of making dovetails.
(hence the 4 stars instead of 5) I did not experience any shipping damage problems that others reported. Besides the great reviews given in Amazon, other wood working magazines rated it very highly as well. For the price it is an excellent jig. Like any tool you have to practice with it to appreciate it and I do. I think that is more a function of the shipper and the care they give (or don't) to the package. I have to agree with other reviewers that the manual is terrible.
There is no redundancy so start reading /studying from page one. The pictures in the manual are clear and the instructions concise. The through dovetail joints stood proud a little less than 1/64 of an inch on one side and a little less than 1/32 of an inch on the other which is just right for sanding flush. Depth settings and alignments were very easy, accurate and accomplished in about 30 seconds each. This Porter-Cable jig made absolutely perfect half blind and through dovetail joints right out of the box. I used 3/4" plywood to make the joints and experienced very little tear out. I have previous experience with a 1/4" box joint jig I designed for thin stock that makes perfect joints and a Sears 1/2" dovetailing jig that wasted a lot of time and wood on test cuts to get the depth and alignment just right. The instructions provide good guidance on this point.
THE PORTER CABLE DOVETAIL JIG IS VERY USER FRIENDLY AND THE DEPTH STOP SET-UP MAKES THE TASK OF SETTING EASY. A VERY SOLID JIG WITH VERY GOODTENSION HOLDING WOOD IN PLACE FOR ACCURATE PLACEMENT.
I argued with myself about whether to buy this dovetail jig or the Leigh. Now if I can just get a weekend to try it out. This sure isn't the new OmniJig, but the price is about 1/4, so it will do just fine. I've been a bit disappointed by Porter Cable recently. I will say that I find the bit depth gauge to be a little cheesy, just being the plastic top of a thumbscrew, but when the time comes that it gets all banged up, I will replace it with a carriage bolt, and then it will have a metal top.
Foreign made tools, quality slipping, and so on. I finally decided on the PC 4212, because I don't need variable dovetail spacing and I wanted to keep it simple. I also don't need anything longer than 12" (at least not now). This product arrived, it seems very solidly built and all the pieces were there.
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