Picture of Rabbited Dovetail with Leigh D4

[Larry Bud]

Folks, I've made a few drawers with my Leigh dovetail jig, but this was my first attempt at a rabbited half-blind dovetail. I must say, I'm quite pleased!

made 3 drawers (fronts and sides, backs will be through dovetails) in about 45 minutes, including setup. I find that halfblinds are quite easy and fast to make with the D4, mainly because the only adjustment that has to be right on is the depth of the cutter. Using the #120 Leigh bit, it has a depth of 7/16" for a half blind. Using an accurate straight edge and a knife, I marked the depth on a tail board, clamped it into the jig, and lowered the cutter right onto the mark. This depth affects the tightness of the dovetail.

The only other setting is how far the cut goes into front of the drawer (the pins mode), and this depth can be sneaked up on, and once it's set on the test piece, there's no other setup that needs to be done. Just clamp the pieces in, and rout.

[JLucas ILS]

A nice drawer front. I just came in from the shop where I am setting up the D4 for the next router jig to review in the "Sovetail Jig Shootout." So many people say that it must be very complex since their spiral bound manual is so many pages. Not so. It is a great manual. Good luck with your D4.

[Charlie Self]

That manual is so thick because it literally tells you how to do everything, and tells it with great clarity. It is without a doubt the best tool manual I've ever seen. Wish I still had my D4. My June 29 fire ate mine. It's a tool I expect to miss a lot.

Charlie Self "If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. " Dorothy Parker

[Doug Miller]

A tip for future reference: the drawers will go faster still, if you use half-blind dovetails in back as well (since it's one less setup to make).

-- Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

[charlie b]

Half blind dovetails on drawers is pretty straight foreward since you've got some slop in the length of the drawer. If it's an overlay drawer the drawer front acts as the stop. If it's a flush/inset drawer you can put a cam stop behind the drawer and fine tune to your heart's delight.

BUT when the drawer is accessible from both the front and the back of a workbench it gets a little trickier Unlike through dovetailed drawers where the width and length of the sides and front/back are the actual opening dimensions (less a smidge for expansion), the length of the drawer side isn't the opening dimension.

THAT caused a bit of grief. Here's the problem and the "no measuring tape" method I eventually arrived at.

I've really got to finish this bench. Would have made doing the sharpening cabinet now under way SO MUCH EASIER to do. A four foot wide, 7 foot long "bench" with no dog holes and only one face vise just doesn't work very well. BUT it is nice for roughing out parts from 4x8 ply with a circular saw.

BTW - the JoinTech Cabinet Maker System (drive by gloat) does all kinds of dovetails, box joints AND works great as a router table fence AND mini-edge jointer. You can route dadoes and rabbets/rebates to exactly fit ply that's not 1/2" or 3/4" because you can move the fence in

0.001 inch increments. did I mention that it doesn't require top bearing bits or collars?

charlie b

(unsolicited rave on JoinTech is MHO, I've got no association with JoinTech other than owning one of their products)

[Larry Bud]

I must have read your mind, because that's exactly what I did!