finally done cutting dovetails...

[drumpriest]

I was determined to finish dovetailing the drawer boxes tonight, probably a mistake considering the little sleep I'll have for tomorrow. Anyway, I broke out the Leigh jig a couple of days ago, it's been over a year since I've used it, so I played a bit first.



Here's a sample joint that I cut, deciding upon the spacing I liked.



And finally, here are all of the drawer boxes for the hot wall. We're doing 1/2 at a time, so I get to take a break from dovetails for a while. Thankfully I have the VRS, it was messy with it, would have been horrible without it.



Thanks for looking,

[jking]

It's looking good. A success that you got them done as late as you were up. I would have ended up doing something stupid like accidentally cutting dovetails in the top of a drawer.

[JR]

Looks good, Keith. Out of curiosity, how long did it take to do the cutting vs. setup time?
JR

[drumpriest]

Good question JR, really it was mostly the cutting. The Leigh jig is pretty efficient overall, if you do things in batches. These represent drawers from 2 base cabinets, each cabinet has a 5", 6", and 8" drawer. (actual drawer side size, not opening size).

I surfaced everything together, which easily took as long as cutting the dovetails, as I don't have a stop for 5/8" I went to about 1/32" oversize and drum sanded to final dimension.

Then I had 3 setups, one each for 5", 6", and 8". They are somewhat related mathematically, so it wasn't too bad to do the setups, just about marking a board and moving the pins around.

I have yet to buy a 2nd guide bushing, which I really should do, as I have 2 routers, that would have made the job a lot faster. Most of my time was spent changing bits and resetting protrusions, in terms of setup. A lot of cutting, of course.

[poolhound]

Nice job Keith,

Repetative parts are rather boring but doing the setup once is certainly preferable to doing each one indivdually.