www.KitGuitarsForum.com

Hi guys,

As you know, I like to make my own jigs when I can. Dovetail jigs are expensive. The basic idea for this jig came from Robbie Obrien. I made modifications.

I built this from scrap and "stuff" sitting around the shop. The biggest expensive were the templates, one for the mortise, the other for the tenon. I think I paid around $50 for both.

This is the tenon jig. I'll make the mortise jig next and I'll post it.

The materials used were:

Scrap 12mm thick, and 3/4" plywood, 1 piece of aluminum angle, nuts/bolts, and two 300lb toggle clamps. Everything, inc the clamps were laying around the shop. I bought 4 toggle clamps from Amazon to make a new shooting board, so I had 2 left over. They cost ~ $3/each.

I think you can see the simple design. The main thing is to ensure that the template centerline, is absolutely lined up and square to the centerline on the on the neck truss rod channel. This is crucial. I routed a pocket for the template to lay into, so it's flat to the board. Everything is secured by nuts and bolts. You'll see the beginning of a crack in one corner of the template. It doesn't go through. It occurred as I was trying to countersink the bolt, and I caught just the edge of the template.

The neck truss rod channel is placed on two 1/4" dowels, which hold it straight to the template. You can see 2 dowel pins, with another place for a third if needed.

The jig may not be beautiful or fancy; it's utilitarian and will do the job well. I don't know what I have in materials, since everything was sitting around. You'll even see test holes from calibrating the new cnc. Lol

The jig extension behind the angle is simply clamped to a bench. I'll use my rigid palm router to cut dovetails.

BTW, the neck you see clamped into the jig is for demonstration only. It's one of my first ones, which I rejected a long tike ago.

Thanks for that post. I have a somewhat similar jig that I have always used for my dovetails on ukes and guitars. I recently made the mistake of trying to upgrade to a nice aluminum jig that is sold on line. It is universally adjustable for different instruments. In fact, it is so universally adjustable that I can't deal with it. It's going on eBay soon! Very complicated for my 76 year old brain. So, I'm going to re-work my original one and go back to it. I see some ideas I'll steal from your design. Thanks for those. Enjoy your building!-Bob

Bob Gleason wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:19 pm Thanks for that post. I have a somewhat similar jig that I have always used for my dovetails on ukes and guitars. I recently made the mistake of trying to upgrade to a nice aluminum jig that is sold on line. It is universally adjustable for different instruments. In fact, it is so universally adjustable that I can't deal with it. It's going on eBay soon! Very complicated for my 76 year old brain. So, I'm going to re-work my original one and go back to it. I see some ideas I'll steal from your design. Thanks for those. Enjoy your building!-Bob

I'm happy you found the post useful. I've decided on a simple design for the matching mortise jig.

Thanks for posting this. I made a lot of the jigs for my first build primarily to save money but I found that it had the added benefit of giving me a better understanding of the process, which usually makes for a better fixture - or at least one that I can understand. I wanted to cut my first neck joint by hand and now that I survived that experience I can't make a neck dovetail jig fast enough!

I made something similar, based on StewMac's design. https://www.stewmac.com/video-and-ideas ... tructions/

I am surprised you didn't use your milling machine thats what I use

tippie53 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 9:08 pm I am surprised you didn't use your milling machine thats what I use

That's why I've built the cnc, but I've been working through problems. I've just finally gotten it straightened out. I'm going to post everything under the cnc blog that I started, so I won't bore you with details here.

Plus, I've just upgraded to VCarve desktop, from Cut2D. I have no idea how to use CAD software, another hurdle. I had the templates before I has my first cnc, so I'm just putting them to use.

I use Vcarve pro 10.5