SO I love dovetails. And all of the ways to make them seem overly complex to my weak mind. Since the router has a see through base ( basically ) why couldn’t I mount wood on its side, and use a standard dovetail bit? Has anyone done this?
Thankks
Steve
Yes.
That said, why?
It’s far easier to work up a joinery method which allows cutting the joint in its entirety with the stock flat on the machine — one operation versus 3.
If you’ll provide an example of what you’d like to join, and the dimensions we can walk through this with you.
Do you have a dovetail-replacement joint that you particularly recommend as attractive (subjective but, e.g., no dogbones)? Knapp joints?
As a cabinetmaker once opined:
Endgrain is like a person’s belly button — you know that everyone has one, but it’s pretty rare that one actually wants to see it.
My preference is for full-blind joints — with modern adhesives there’s seldom a need for a through joint or visible endgrain:
Wow, that seems perfect - miter appearance but strong like finger joints. I’ll have to study it more to really get my brain around it. (I guess Knapp joints can’t be cut on the flat anyway, plus I don’t find them that attractive).
Correct, Knapp (or cove and pin) require a vertical fixture:
In general I guess, I have a dovetail jig and router obviously. It’s a PITA to get the depths correct for a repeatable outcome, just thought the CNC once set up could do better. And I love visible dovetails
As noted, I wrote up how to do that, and put up a design for a vertical fixture — if you want through dovetails, let me know what tool you would want to use and the dimensions of your stock and the number of pins/tails you want and I’ll look into adding that to the tool I worked up — but it’s pretty simple to do by hand, just both parts will need to be vertical and you’ll probably want to set the origin relative to each, and for the pins you’ll need to draw the outlines of the ends.