good dovetail jig?

[John Smith]

Does anyone have the Jet 709060 12" Dovetail Jig? I'm looking at buying a jig and getting into dovetails. I read some reviews on it and most everyone said the instructions are lacking, but once you have the bit depth right, it is a great tool for the price. Please let me know your experiences with this jig or any others that are comparable in features.

Thanks

[Bill]

I tried a few different ones and went with the Porter Cable. Not the OmniJig

[John Smith]

I was all set to the the smaller PC one, but then I saw the Jet. Does the PC jig clamp fairly well? Based on the picture of it, it looks as though you screw the clamps down. Does it get tight enough to hold the stock? Thanks for replying Bill.

[Bill]

I just screwed it to a board, and then clamp the board to the table. The board stays on the jig. The Jet is identical the Harbor Freight jigs. I wasn't too impressed with it's setup.

You can get the same jig as the PC from Hartville tool. They also sell templates for box joints that will fit the PC (or theirs, same difference)

.

[Rick]

i just purchased the porter cable jig,and i think it's great.it took me about

45 minutes from opening the box to final assembly,then about 15 minutes to fine tune the setup,and then i dovetailed 6 drawers in about 15 minutes time.worked very well,and only cost me 89$ at the neighborhood home depot.even comes with it's own template guide,and high speed porter cable dovetail jig. "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day,fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way......"

[James D. Kountz]

The Jet is a great jig. Beware of some of the cheaper look alikes. Some of them have plastic templates while the Jet and others have aluminum. Some of the cheaper jigs do look alot like the Jet but if you ever compare them up close there are some differences. Mainly knobs and clamping mechanisms.

Jim

[R]

If you want a fool-proof jig that is fast and unlimited get the Keller Jig. It cuts through dovetails. Once you set the jig onto its backing block - a one time assembly - you will be cutting dovetails in less than a minute. All you do is clamp the board in a vise or workmate, set the jig and backing block on top of the board, position it where you want it, clamp it to the board and start your router. I have been looking at jigs for two years and when I saw this demoed there was no reason to wait any longer. I can do things that other jigs cannot do

- it can dovetail any width board. Keller has a website - check it out!

R

[Never Enough Money]

I'm going through the same tradeoff analysis. My favortie dovetail jig so far is the Akeda jig which is temporarily out of production due to a fire. Production is expected to resume soon, in a month or so. It is my favorite because of the dust collection. You can also find a comparison chart on the Akeda web page. It's reasonably fair....

jigs are considered the top end. However, unless you make dovetails daily, it's too complicated (for me, at least). comparison between Leigh and Akeda is here: Incra precision fennces anf the similar ones from JoinTech are als capable of doing dovetails. The nice thing about this approcah si that there's lot's of other "stuff" the machine can do. Incra -- -- for the Woodrat and Little Rat:

If you like the Keller jig, then the Woodhaven jig may also be of interest - it uses Keller templates.

also like the katie Jig: 's a good Dovetail jig article in Fine Woodworking: can also do dovetails with a bandsaw and chisel or just a chisel.

[Never Enough Money]

Rockler also has an "cost effective" dovetail jig....