Making a box with a router jig

I love my CNC machine, but this is how I would do that faster and probably better with this simple router jig.

I have a full woodworking shop. I also love my Shapeoko but it is not always the best tool for a particular job. A recent example was a post about making holes in cabinet doors for European hinges. You can certainly make the holes with a CNC but the time to program, setup the door on the spoilboard, machine the hole and remove the door from the CNC is likely a lot longer than using a jig or simply marking the door and using a drill press.

Nothing wrong with using the CNC but if a carpenter only has one tool, a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We have a lot of experienced woodworkers here on the forum. We also have people that bought their CNC and never made anything out of wood before. Everyone starts somewhere but I dont recommend trying to do everything on your CNC. If it is your only tool then go for it but if you have other tools that would be better suited for a particular job then use that tool.

Dovetails that are hand cut are works of art. Modern day machines and jigs that make dovetails are so so. It took real skill to hand cut dovetails and a lot of time perfecting that technique. Most drawers are open for a few seconds/minutes so making dovetail drawers is really a waste of time. Even with jigs and machines it is time consuming to setup and failure is always an option.

45 degree miter lock bits, drawer lock bit, 45 degree miters with splines are all valid choices for making drawers or boxes. I have an Incra Position-er and making double double dovetails is really spectacular but time consuming.

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The thing is, a fair number of our customers only have a Shapeoko (or Nomad) as a power tool, and it’s even a smaller number who would be inclined to hand-cut dovetails, which I find a pleasing and relaxing thing when I get the chance:

Telling these folks to get a table saw, or set up a router table (which would almost certainly require removing a trammed router from their machine) is a non-starter.

Anyone who wants to set up a tutorial for alternative box joinery techniques is welcome to do so — but it’s only on topic here if done with a Carbide 3D machine, or using Carbide 3D software — Sawmill Creek and the Lumberjocks forums and so forth are where that sort of thing would be on topic.