In this video I'm gonna cover making 3 dovetail joints
using the Pantorouter.
Based on the smallest dovetail that I've got, I'm gonna design
a dovetail joint that has the geometry that can still get
away with. And then design templates including this
pins template.
And the tails template. And then I'll show you
how to get it all lined up so that the joints fit.
And then we'll cut the joints.
I'm gonna start by working out the
geometry for my dovetail joints.
I wanna make these as small as I can.
So, I'm using the smallest dovetail joint that I've got.
The width across the top of that one is 3/8th of an inch.
Which is about nine and a half millimeters.
So, I'm gonna make the space between the tails
These would be the tails attached to the board.
I'm gonna make that 10 millimeters so
that gives me a little bit of slack.
Now, for cutting out the pins
that's basically this end grain here.
I need to cut out this part here.
I need to make a cut-out for the tails.
So, the tails are gonna fit in here.
And my router bit has to fit in here.
Now this bit is1/4 inch.
But it actually measures
closer to 8 millimeters.
So, I'm gonna make this space in here...
8 millimeters.
So that I still have a little bit of
room to move with the router bit.
So, together I'm gonna have a 10 millimeter and and 8 millimeter
for a 18 millimeter dovetail spacing.
Let's start by constructing a shape for the pins template.
The dovetail bit that we're gonna use
can cut a maximum depth of about 8 millimeters
this way, which means I'm never gonna
have stock thicker than 8 millimeters
which means I also only need to guide for cutting the pins
by about 8 millimeters deep.
So, basically this is gonna cut like that and
I can't use boards thicker than 8 millimeters.
Now, that actually doubles when we get to the template
because the Pantograph always doubles everything.
So, this is another half inch guide bearing.
So, we know that this needs to be able to move down
by about 16 millimeters where it's still fully guided.
So, it needs to come down
just this far. Now, let's give that a little bit of extra.
And, since we're gonna use a 7 millimeter wide cutter
to cut this space here.
At the narrowest point this thing still
needs to be able to move back and forth
by 2 millimeters. Because again, everything doubles.
So, let's just draw the outline of that
and move it over by a couple of millimeters
ish. Here, so
We need to have space for that.
And let's draw some lines. I've got this...
this bevel gauge set to 14 degrees
which is the angle of my dovetail bit, so...
that's gonna be the angle that I need for the guides here.
And, let's draw a line here.
Two lines and that's basically how this thing's gonna go.
The cool thing is we have this intersection point here.
And, because I don't want to do extra measurements
I'm just gonna reference everything to that.
So, I'm gonna draw a horizontal line
where these points are.
And now I'm gonna measure
36 millimeter spacing. That's our 18 millimeters times 2. So..
36.
72.
So now that I've got these tick marks here, I know that
both of these lines intersect here.
So, I can just do everything
down to those lines.
Now, my bearing only needs to come down about this far.
But, just to give me a little bit of safety margin
let's see. The bearing can come down as far as this
before it hits both sides.
So, I really only need to
cut these to about that depth. So,
let's draw another line on here.
Ok, so basically these are the parts I need to cut away.
Now, I've only done this roughly on paper.
So, what I'm gonna do next is I'm gonna draw this on
wood itself. So I don't have to
transfer the marks onto the wood.
And I'm gonna draw that a lot more carefully.
Ok, so here's my...
template that I'm gonna cut out.
And I'm gonna cut out these triangle her for the
ball bearing to follow that.
And I'm gonna do that on the bandsaw.
So, I finished my tails template.
And remember, this is the one the bearing travels in
like this. Which is essentially used to produce these cuts
with a straight bit.
Now for the pins
I don't need to make an angle cut at all.
Because the angles already in the dovetail here and
this just has to travel straight up and down.
So, what I need to do is make a template
which has got slots on it that my bearing can travel just
straight up and down. And I want these slots to be just
wider than my bearing.
I'm going to cut these on the table saw.
And, I've marked my interval of 36 millimeters
on here and I'm just gonna put that in the sled and
line that up with each of these and make the first cut
for each of the slots for my bearing.
I'm now making a second series of cuts lined up with a
second tick mark. So, between those two, I'll
have my slots with guide bearings.
So, here's my template for the pins and here's
template for the tails.
And the guide bearing fits with just a little bit of play
in here. And let's just do a quick check
to make sure the spacing and everything is all right.
So, these look like they fit all nicely. If one of these
fingers was out of line they wouldn't fit on one of them
So, it doesn't look like I made any
great mistakes.
Now I need to swap out my guide bearing on the Pantorouter
to the half inch one that I designed my templates to use.
So, now I've got it all set up for cutting my dovetails.
That's the tail part of my dovetails.
I've got the small dovetail bit in here.
And I've got my tails template here
which is just a straight slots.
Setting that up was relatively straight forward because
all I have to make sure is if the bearing bottoms out
that my bit is just below the level of the table.
So, it's just a straight cut through all the pieces.
So, I'm gonna go ahead and make those cuts.
So, I set up my pins template and I cut myself
a test joint. And you can see it was
very, very loose. But, this actually really helps me
because I just need to measure the amount of gap that
I've got there and I know that I need to displace that joint
by that much and the joint will fit perfectly.
So, to displace that joint
All I need to do is to move this template
up by twice as much because remember everything gets
doubled with the Pantograph. So, if I've got a millimeter gap
that just means this template here needs to move up
by 2 millimeters.
And we should have a perfectly fitting joint.
I need to make sure is when I cut my pins is
that I cut exactly
[where my dovetails are so basically this is the dovetail.
[00:08:33.21] And I want my pin
cut-out The cut-out between my pins
centered exactly on that dovetail so...
I've lined that up and that is the bearing is right in the
middle of one of these. So, basically each of these
things here is going to hopefully line up
with where the pin is. Each cut-out.
So that my edges of the box here
are gonna line up.
So, here's my pins that I just cut.
And my tails that I cut previously.
And it looks like the bottom edge here lines up
so I got that right. So, let's put that together.
It's a little bit tight.
So well let's see.
I have a tiny little bit of a gap right
here on this one. So, it's not perfect.
But, considering I cut these on the bandsaw.
It's not bad. I haven't pushed it all the way together yet.
Because I wanted these flush just to show.
So, let's push this all the way in.
And there we go. So if I was actually making a box
instead of just demonstrating the technique.
I would have maybe not made these extend quite as far.
Either that or I would extend them further and just sand
them flush. So, now that I've got my templates made.
All I have to do is just to put it in the same position
to recreate that joint. So, the one critical
measurement that I worked out is that this distance from
this edge down here is 55 millimeters.
And basically to get that same fit
again, I just have to make sure
that template is mounted at exactly the same height.
The height of the other template doesn't really matter that much.
Because I'm just cutting straight through.
Now the other thing I found that was really awkward
to adjust the height of this part here. So, I added some
slots to my frame. And made it so that
I can put these bolts, that I normally use for the templates
up here. I can move these down here.
Which makes it a lot easier to move that template
because I don't have to fiddle with the clamp.
So, dovetail joints is just one of the many things this machine
can do. I originally designed it mostly for mortise
and tenon joints, but really any joint that you can cut with
a router, this machine can do with the right template.
If you want a machine like that
unfortunately it's not commercially
available. It would probably cost
way too much to manufacture.
But, you can build it. I have a set of very detailed
plans for sale. So, build one. It is cool.