This is a picture of the fingers of all types that are a part of the complete system. Each
of the little black pieces has the degree mark, but my eyes, and I, don't have the
patience to sort them out over and over. They came in great protective packages, but ones
that do not lend themselves to easy storage.
It is time to make a storage box. It shouldn't be too difficult unless I make
it so.
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The arrow points to a yellow
sheet where I have sketched my plan. I tried every possible way to be clever in the
storage of those black pieces but finally decided to just make a shallow tray with
separators.
While I didn't want to make the box too "big a deal", I did want to
make it attractive — to fit with the jig itself. So I went to my local Woodcraft
store to see what boards they had. I wanted two contrasting colors — of course, I am
going to make dovetail corners.
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The wood that I got
was 1/2" thick so my first step is to look in the manual for their suggested dovetail
bit recommendation. I will use the one they say is "best" — the 1/2"
11o bit.
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Using the actual stock I
will cut the dovetails in, I use the Point-2-Point gadget to help lay them out. I mark the
four points where I will cut the tail sockets.
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I thought I
could have 4 but in fact since each dovetail finger is 1" wide, the most I can have
is 3. In hindsight, that makes a better looking, and probably stronger, corner joint.
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I route the three
dovetail sockets. By the way, I have not yet cut down the boards to final lengths. I am
using the ends of two boards to make this test. Once I have things set the way I want
them, then I will cut off these test(s).
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I apologize for the picture.
You can see that in no time I have a board with three evenly spaced dovetail sockets and
two dovetails.
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I have moved to the other
end of the jig. Rather than to take the first fingers out and replace them, I will use the
right end to set up for cutting the pins.
The manual describes a way to do this. I try something a wee bit different. First, I clamp
the board I just cut the tails in against the right hand stop. I then, insert the 7o
fingers directly over where I cut the sockets. Then to double check all this, I used a
piece of white tape to mark the center positions that I used on the left end. I line it up
here and make any slight adjustments that are necessary. It took about 3 minutes to do
this.
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And I make the cut. The
Akeda jig has a 16" width capacity. I will use this to make blanket chests of about
24" — I will just do them in sections.
But for a production shop, it is nice to be able to setup the jig like I have
it now with one end for the dovetail sockets and the other for the pins. With two routers
in use, it is a very practical solution.
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Here is my test
corner. It is perfect. Both cuts are about 1/32 over in depth so once I glue the box up, I
can sand both sides flush.
This was just the setup. I will now cut the pieces to final length and make
the actual dovetail cuts.
By the way, there is a helpful hint in the manual that suggests that once the
depth is perfect, you should make a setup block with that height. This is not a bad idea
but frankly this test corner was so easy to do, I will probably follow the same procedures
in the future. It took about 5 minutes.
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By the way, I am using this
PorterCable vacuum. It is very handy and ideal for this since it is controlled by the
router. When I turn the router on, the vacuum starts. Right now, I switch plugs for
whichever router I am using. I will get a double outlet so that I can have both plugged
in. Whichever router is used then, the vacuum will start.
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