Anybody have any good recommendations for a good router table and a powerful router to knockout a bunch of sliding dovetails? I was looking at kreg and incra. I have to make over 500 sliding dovetail joints.
I’m making the sliding dovetail female cut on a piece of 3″x3″x2ft piece and making the male dovetail on a piece of 1″x6″x2ft.
Was wondering what everybody’s opinion of the fastest method to get these done?
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I often cut the tails on the table saw using a custom ground flat tooth rip blade. I have the teeth ground at 7° (or whatever you want) and tilt the blade 7° (note right vs. left tilt dictates grinding). I believe there is an article by Steve Latta on this in FWW.
I usually use a miter gauge with a tall fence for drawer sides, but for your application I think you could adapt a tenon jig that runs along the fence (the Latta tenon jig).
Maybe this would be a good alternative to a router.
The porter cable 3 1/4 hp router comes to mind, but I dont have a specific table suggestion. Consider that you'll want to add feather boards when you bang these out. Most of the waste for your female end should be taken out with a dado stack so that the router just needs to get the corners out.
I like doing sliding dovetails on my Router Boss. Easily set up to cut both sides of the joint and you can see what you are doing as you cut. I'm guessing you are cutting the dovetails along the long dimension of the pieces? You'll probably want to taper them so they don't jam before you get the tail all the way home in the socket.
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