{"id":3030,"date":"2022-06-03T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodiswood.com\/?p=3030"},"modified":"2022-09-07T12:00:14","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T09:00:14","slug":"best-dovetail-jigs-for-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodiswood.com\/best-dovetail-jigs-for-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Dovetail Jigs For Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When you are a beginner, something like a dovetail might be intimidating at first. But with the right jig, you can and you will be able to make perfect dovetails. Right now there are tons of options on the market, which might confuse anyone. So which one is the right dovetail jig for you? Don’t worry, we are here to help you out with making that decision. We reviewed all the best jigs in the market and compiled the list all in one place. Read this article to find out the best dovetail jigs for beginners available right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best dovetail jigs for beginners are: the Porter-Cable 12-inch 4210, Leigh D4R-PRO, Keller Dovetail System 135-1500, Porter-Cable 4216. All of these jigs fit the criteria for being the best amongst the others in the market. They are easy to assemble out of the box, they are compatible with most routers, setting up wooden boards in them is easy, and they always give you perfectly square dovetail joints.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are tons of dovetail jigs in the market, and you can make your own if you want to. Making your own jig can be hard for a beginner, and cutting dovetails without one is even harder. But with the right jig and the knowledge to use it, you can get square dovetail joints each and every time. The dovetail jigs in our list are chosen because they do exactly that. Not to mention they are easy to assemble and anyone can set up wooden boards in them without issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to Look for in Dovetail Jigs?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Earlier on we mentioned the criteria of what to look for when choosing a dovetail jig. Let us briefly go over those again and understand why these things matter most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assembly<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Don’t you just hate it when you buy a tool and there are like a billion instructions on how to assemble it properly? Well, we do too! This is why ease of assembly is on top of our list! Whenever you buy a product you usually want to be able to use it out of the box. But if it does require a little bit of assembly, it shouldn’t be rocket science. If you mess it up, that will just mean that the dovetails that you make will not be perfectly square. Instead, you will just end up wasting time figuring out how to fix this jig and getting results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compatibility<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While most people want to buy the best of the best tools, not everyone can afford them. Some of us still do the best we can with a budget pick that does the job fine with a few compromises here and there. But that shouldn’t limit us to the options of jigs we can buy. After all, a jig should be compatible with most routers that are on the market. We shouldn’t have to buy a whole new router just so it works on the jig. Some jigs even work for both, table routers and handheld plunge routers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting Up<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So the setup is another thing to keep in mind whenever you are buying a jig. No one likes it when it takes an hour to set up the wood in the jig before cutting joints in it. If you wanted to spend an hour doing that it is better to cut a dovetail by hand. Because it would take less time doing that, it is best to find a jig that not only cuts square but also lets you set up the wood in it with ease, accuracy, precision, and less time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A good jig needs to meet all the criteria and not miss one even slightly. If it ticks all the boxes but fails to tick this particular one, then it is a no-brainer that you don’t go for it. Because in the end you want square dovetails and you want them to fit and slide together perfectly. So having a dovetail jig that always makes square dovetails is going to be important when you choose one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4 Best Dovetail Jigs Reviewed<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/strong> <\/strong>Porter-Cable 12-inch 4210<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Porter-Cable makes one of the finest dovetail jigs, in fact, they have three models on the market at the moment. The 4210 is a reasonably priced jig and is 12 inches wide, and comes with 3 templates for your router. It has template alignment lines and a router bit depth gauge for maximum accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the alignment lines you know where to position your router, and the depth gauge keeps your router bit from overextending. Not to mention the machined aluminium template gives you square dovetails all the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we like about the jig are the clamps which hold wooden boards really firmly using the cam lock style clamps. With clear-cut instructions and a manual included, using this Porter-Cable 4210 dovetail jig is incredibly easy. For us, this jig ticks all the boxes that we talked about earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pros<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n