I wasted $280 on a cheap dovetail jig that couldn't hold tolerance

Bought a no-name dovetail jig off Amazon back in March thinking it would save me money over the Leigh one. By the time I finished tuning the thing and fighting with loose pins, I had ruined $150 worth of walnut. The aluminum guides just flexed too much under the router bit. Anyone else have luck with the Porter-Cable jig instead?

3 comments

3 Comments

mila_harris25d ago

Yeah I've been there. That aluminum guide flex drives me nuts. I picked up a Porter-Cable 4212 used off craigslist for $150 and it held tolerance way better than any of those cheap Amazon jigs ever could. The steel guides don't budge even with a 1/2 inch bit pushing hard through walnut. You still gotta dial in the depth of cut and make sure your router base is dead flat or you'll get gaps on the backside of the pins. Only thing that sucks is the setup time, the first couple joints take forever getting the offset right.

kim.zara25d agoMost Upvoted

Feel you on that setup time lol. I spent damn near an hour on my first try just shimming the backer board over and over til the pins fit right.

skylerrobinson17d ago

Rented a buddies workshop one time where he had this old Delta jig from the 90s bolted to a bench, whole thing felt like it was built out of cast iron and regret. Spent three hours just getting the thing to stop wobbling cause the previous owner had stripped the adjustment screws. Ended up wrapping the threads with teflon tape as a temporary fix and it actually held better than I expected, which is weird cause thats usually a plumbing hack not a woodworking one. But yeah, that setup time is brutal, I swear half the battle with dovetails is just convincing the jig you know what youre doing before it decides to cooperate.