For hundreds of years, cabinetmakers have been intimidated by dovetails. Until fairly recently, the joint had to be cut by hand, and matched with great precision. Woodworkers held their breath as they chopped all the pins perfectly, and then worked through the tails, hoping that all their work wouldn't be for nought if they missed by a hair on the final tail.
With the advent of commercially available jigs and reliable handheld routers some sixty years ago, the job got a little easier in one way, and almost terrifying in another. Sure, now all the pins and tails matched... but the setups on some of those jigs were (and still are) mindblowingly complex. I've had a dovetail jig in the shop for twenty-five years, and used it maybe three times. It gives me nightmares!

Here's the deal: You use a simple, one-piece factory-built template (above) to make your own jig (below). That's it! You can make the jig as long or as short as you need - several feet long is no problem. The TemplateMaster is used to mill the first section of the jig, then moved along the board to make the second, and third, and so on until you reach the desired length. Think of the dovetailed chests, cabinets and boxes you could build!

And it costs less than the price of a table saw blade to get started - the current price of the TemplateMaster is less than $40

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You can make your jig out of several different materials, but MDF may be the most stable and reliable.

What really makes this jig unique is its versatility. It can be used with a handheld router in the traditional manner (at left), or on a router table (shown below). The manufacturer gives you instructions to build various setups that can be used over and over again.

And if you accidentally nick the jig with a dovetail bit (as we all have done when we lifted the darn thing before the cut was finished), it's no big deal. You can just use the template to make a new, identical jig in a few minutes.

For more information, visit STOTS online.