# Home made dovetail jig



## rtard (Jan 2, 2009)

Hello,
I'm new to the forum and new to routing and woodworking. I'm retired and have recently inherited my father's woodworking shop. I'm interested in getting safely underway with woodworking on his "host" of woodworking tools. I'm currently interested in dovetail jigs and understand that some folks actually make their own. Any suggestions, plans, etc. ? rtard


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## Dr.Zook (Sep 10, 2004)

Welcome to the forums rtard. Congrats on your retirement. I'm sure Bj will let you in on the homemade dovetail jigs. He is great at making these.


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

HI rtard

It's very,very, very hard to made your own dovetail jig from scratch ,,,BUT you can do if if you have a good template to start off with...

I recommend the Katie jig,,,you can buy just one of the fingers from Katie or sommmerfeld tools .. see below, you will see the ones I made, it's not easy to make but it's fun to make  and they work very well 

It can be used on the router table,that is the best way but you can also clamp it up in the wood vise..or screw it down to the work bench 

You will also see some snapshots of the MLCS template that work very well aslo, but you can't move the fingers around...respace them 


http://www.katiejig.com/
http://www.sommerfeldtools.com/
http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/

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rtard said:


> Hello,
> I'm new to the forum and new to routing and woodworking. I'm retired and have recently inherited my father's woodworking shop. I'm interested in getting safely underway with woodworking on his "host" of woodworking tools. I'm currently interested in dovetail jigs and understand that some folks actually make their own. Any suggestions, plans, etc. ? rtard


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## xplorx4 (Dec 1, 2008)

Welcome to the forum, Bj knows it cause Bj knows everything!! The man is a walking router/woodworking wizard. If someone put all I know up against all he knows, my knowledge would "rattle around like a BB in a box car".


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## AxlMyk (Jun 13, 2006)

Shopnotes Volume 8, issue 43, January 1999 had an article about building your own.
I just got a Harbor Freight dovetail jig for under $40. Sure beats making one.


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## kefjens (Jan 2, 2009)

I was checking that Shopnotes jig article out. It looked like the fingers would be really tricky to get right...looks like some trial and error. It looked a bit advanced for a beginner like me. It would be cool to make once I felt really comfortable with the tools.


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