Making sliding dovetails on large panels.

Making sliding dovetails is a great way to produce a sturdy joint, that is if you have a horizontal router table to rout the male part of the dovetail. And I don't have one, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Even if I did have a horizontal router table the large pieces I needed to make can't be safely run through a table. My solution, the Festool UP-OF Edging Plate on my 1010 router. I'm using small scraps to make sure I've got all the bugs worked out before I get to my project with dovetails on the end of 94" shelves. (Jerry Work suggests routing the female DT first, different than the procedures I used here, see "notes" at the bottom of this page.)

I started with a dovetail bit set to 3/8". Using a brass setup bass makes this easy.

Here are all the parts I'll be using, the UP-OF Edging Plate and that requires the WA-OF Angle Arm. I'm also going to use the SF-OF Chipguard to help collect the dust. These accessories are normally used for edge trimming laminate, but they will work for this task nicely.

This shot is with it all assembled. As you can see here the Angle Arm attaches to the router where the support foot goes, then the Edging Plate threads into the Angle Arm. The Chipguard mounts the router's base. The Edging Plate can be adjusted by loosening the black thumb screw and turning the green fine adjuster knob. This will set the depth of the bit, in relation to the Edge Plate, not the routers base. In other words, the edge plate acts like the bearing on a router bit.

The piece of plywood on the left is the work piece that will get the male DT and the one on the right is added for support of the routers base and the Edging Plate to ride on.

With the router in a horizontal position, I rout the male dovetail, surprisingly this is not as awkward as it looks. Flip it over and rout the other side next.

As you can see from this picture I only rout the the dovetail deep enough for the bottom conors to come to points.

With the male dovetail done, I'll turn my attention to the female dovetail. The 1010 attached to the MFT's guide rail is the easiest way to accomplish this. I set the dovetail bit 5mm deeper to account of the offset of the guide rail, this should be a good depth to start at. After the first pass hold the piece with the male dovetail up to see in the depth is right. Once the depth is correct I use the fine adjuster to move the router over to make the second pass. Test to see if the male piece will slide in without too much trouble.

Its hard to tell from this picture, but there is a little slop in the fit, that is what we want. The slop will allow room for the glue and remember the plywood will swell a little bit when we glue it.

Blind dovetails are done pretty much the same way, except you simply stop the female dovetail short of the end. I like to use the MFT's flip stop on the guide rail to act as a stop.

The blind female dovetail on the left.

Cut off part of the male piece to finish the blind dovetail joint.

On the left the piece is a shot with the male dovetail is being slid into place, the photo on the right shows the completed blind dovetail joint.

This technique can be used on both small and large work pieces. Remember your imagination is the only limit to what can be done with the tools you have at hand.

Notes: Jerry Work considers it easier to cut the female first and then fit the male to the female than the other way around. By cutting the female in one pass full depth you can use the center line marks on the router to position the female slot very accurately. And I would have to agree with him. In this project I cut the male first because I wanted to remove as little material from the edge of the male DT as possible. However, the small DT bit I have would have meant removing more material from male DT than I was comfortable with. If I had a larger DT bit to make one pass for the female DT, I may have done it as Jerry suggests. I'll be adding a few more DT bits to my collection, thanks Jerry. Jerry Work designs and hand crafts fine furniture in Kerby, OR. Check out his site, The Dovetail Joint.