Dovetails and chipout

[danh]

Ok,

I am new to the whole dovetail thing. I bought the Rockler dovetail jig on a whim for some drawers I am building. The drawers are being made out of half inch plywood. The problem is that during the routing of the dovetails i get a huge amount of chipout on the (forget terminology) pins. Basically the sides of the drawers. No matter what I have tried it keeps chipping. Is there a trick? Can i back up the piece in the jig with a scrap piece of wood without ruining the properties of the jig?

danh

[Eric Lund]

You may just be going too fast. I asked about chipout at a show once. The Leigh Jig guy said, go slow enough that you don't hear any difference in the router speed between spinning free and making the cut. This is especially important near the edges of the board. Another technique is to take a very light climbing cut until you have basically scored the edges. Then you can be more aggressive on the interior.

Cheers, Eric

[McQualude]

danh spaketh...

You might try backing it up with masking tape, quick & easy

[JGS]

[Arg]

buy a woodrat.

I think.

No connection. Allows climb cutting SAFELY, no fingers getting grabbed in.

[Todd Stock]

[Phisherman]

I don't know your jig, but backing up will prevent chipout. Sometimes just using masking tape will help. I no longer use a dovetail jig, but make all my dovetails by hand--no chipout.

[Nut Tree]

I am not sure of the jig you are using but do you cut both the face (or back) and the sides at the same time? Are these half blind dovetails? Typical machine cut half blind jigs allow you to cut both the pins and the pockets at the same time. This can be done with very little if no chip out if you are careful and follow some simple steps. If this is your problem, contact me on the back side and I can go into greater detail. Just finished making drawers yesterday from 1/2 inch Baltic birch and a Stanley jig that is 50 years old. It works.

[Lenny]

[Bill Wallace]

If this good birch or other ply then using a backup board might be a good approach. If this is just home depot 1/2 ply it will probably just chip away regardless.

[Bob Bowles]