[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Welcome, it's time again for another episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

On today's episode, we're helping you get even more out of your table saw.

We're gonna turn it into a joinery powerhouse by building and showing you how to use two great jigs.

One will help you build drawers quickly and accurately and the other will help you cut dovetails.

Yep, dovetails right at the table saw.

It's a lot of fun, and I hope you stick around for "The Woodsmith Shop."

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg --from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- Tools for designing and building your products.

Inventables.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You know, Chris, I think when most people think of the table saw, they think about cutting parts to size, but that's not all the table saw's really good for.

No, I tell you, the table saw is a joint-making machine, And we've got two great jigs to prove that point.

So the first one we have here is a rabbiting jig for making locking rabbits and some drawer-lock joints.

One thing I like about this is once you have it set up and dialed in, you can make a whole batch of drawers really quickly.

Absolutely.

Fast, easy.

So if you want to get a little bit fancier, we can change it out and do a dovetail on a table saw.

Right?

Sure can.

So this jig is designed for use with a specially-ground dovetail blade for your table saw, and it's pretty cool.

So in one orientation, we have this fence that we cut the tails on one of our workpieces.

We use a series of spacers to space out the tails.

And then the one thing I like about this is you can also cut the pins or the sockets for matching the tails.

You do that by sliding the fence to one of those other positions.

Then you use a rip blade to cut the pins and you can nibble away all the way.

So really, you're left with minimal cleanup work.

That's fantastic.

No joint says woodworking like a dovetail.

Now, of course, to get started with these, you're gonna need a good set of plans, and those are available on our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

The first step in building the locking rabbit jig begins with building the sled.

Now, the sled consists of this base.

As you can see, I've already hand-sawed out the upper left-hand corner to lighten things up a little bit, and I also sanded a radius on my front two corners.

Now, after that, I'm going to use a framing square and carefully lay out and permanently attach with screws and glue one runner to the bottom of my sled.

The other runner, I'll attach just temporarily with screws.

After that, I'll temporarily attached, with screws only, the rear fence, and I'll make a temporary patch, a front fence.

Now, why not glue everything in place?

Well, the reason is that after all this is done, I'm gonna go to the table saw and I'm gonna run the sled through the blade and separate out the base into a left-hand side and a right-hand side.

The right-hand side, I need to unscrew from everything, and we need to cut a notch into it for a vertical-acting fence that's the next part of our project.

The right-hand portion of our base that we just cut off requires a notch for the vertical fence.

You'll see the notch here.

I'm gonna nibble out the notch using this dado stack.

The last step in completing the sled is the addition of this riser block.

The riser block also includes two threaded inserts.

Those threaded inserts will be used for flip stops.

So I'm gonna go ahead and glue this place, And when that's done, it'll be time for us to move on to the vertical fence and the flip stops, which will complete our jig.

Well, we're ready to finish our locking rabbit jig.

We need two things -- one is this vertical fence.

Now, the vertical fence consists of a base, a support, a bracket, and this fence that slides up and down on these 1/8 inch Masonite strips.

You'll also notice that on our face here, there's an 1/8-inch Masonite strip on the bottom, and that ledge is gonna help support drawer parts as they're cut.

The face is held to the assembly by means of a threaded knob.

And then this whole assembly registers against the front face, and it, too, is held on with a knob.

The last component for our jig is a pair of stops like this.

Each stop consists of a base, and you can see there's a slot that's been milled in it for an adjustable knob.

And also we have a stop.

And if you'll notice, take a look at the front edge.

It's been rounded, and also it's tapered from front to back.

And that just gives us some clearance for sawdust.

Both stops, then, are held in place with threaded knobs and an insert.

And that wraps up the locking rabbit jig, so now all that's left is for Logan to tell us how to use it.

Now, there's a couple of things we need to look at at our table saw first before we even worry about the jig.

The first is the blade, and I've set up a quarter inch dado blade here.

I've used a magnetic angle gauge to make sure that this blade is set perfectly 90 degrees to the top of the table saw.

And once that's done, we can go and set up the jig.

First thing I'm gonna have to do is create a kerf in here that I can measure and set up my guides against.

We're gonna use these guides in three different steps.

The first step is gonna be this guide here, so we'll mark that with a number 1.

And that's gonna create a dado in the sides of our drawer.

After we've created that, we'll come back here to this tall fence and mark that with a number 2.

We'll use that to notch the ends of the front and the back of the drawer, and then come back to the front.

We'll use this guy, number 3, to create a notch on the tongue of the front and the back of the drawer.

So I'm gonna go ahead and create this kerf first, then I'll show you how we set up this first stop.

Okay, so now that we have that kerf cut, we can go ahead and set up this first stop.

And like I said, the first step is gonna create a dado in the sides of our drawer.

So I'm gonna use a couple of pieces of scrap that are the same thickness as my drawer.

The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna use a setup block to adjust this stop so that is exactly 1/4 inch away from that kerf we just made.

We'll tighten that down.

We'll use the same set up block to adjust the blade height down to 1/4 inch.

Okay, so the fit that we're looking for is gonna be a nice fit that slides together and gives us a nice, tight joint.

Now, the first cut I made was a little snug, so adjusted that first stop block in a little bit to loosen up the tongue, but now that those are sliding together, we can go ahead and lock everything down and make sure it's nice and tight and cut the dados in our sides.

So now the sides are taken care of, we can go ahead and concentrate on step number two, which is gonna be this vertical partition here, and that will be to cut the groove in the ends of our front and our back of the drawer.

So we have a couple of adjustments here.

The first is, this fence slides left and right, so closer or further away from the blade.

To sit that, we're gonna use the sides that we just cut.

We'll slip that dado over the blade till it locks in, then we're gonna slide this guy until it touches the side.

Don't press too hard, 'cause you can deflect the blade.

We want it just to touch, and we'll lock that down.

Then our second adjustment is gonna be this guy that slides up and down.

What this does is raises or lowers the front or the back, because it rides on that hardboard lip on the very bottom.

We want the notch in the ends to be the same depth as the thickness of our sides.

Okay, so it takes a little adjustment, but you can dial in that cut depth, so it exactly matches the size, and that's what we're looking for.

Now, we're pretty much ready to go ahead and cut the notches in the ends of our front and back.

There's one thing to take note of as you're doing this -- as you get in the flow of things, and you start cutting the notches on a bunch of different fronts, just make sure that you are getting your workpiece on that small hardboard lip.

If you don't, you can miss it, and then your workpiece ends up angled, and you'll end up cutting way too deep and at a slight angle.

So just pay attention to it.

So now that I have everything locked in, blade heighth is set, we can go ahead and cut the notches in the fronts.

Okay, so now that we have the groove cut in the ends of the front and the back, we can go ahead and notch one of these tongues off to create a short, little, stubby tongue that will fit in our sides.

To do that, we'll flip number 1 out of the way, flip number 3 down.

We're gonna position this guy so it leaves about half of that tongue on there.

Slide that stop in the place, tighten it down.

Okay, there we go.

Once you have that tongue nibbled off, everything snaps together pretty nice and neat, and now all you have left to do to finish out some drawers is to cut a groove for the bottom.

You can do that here at the table saw or at the router table.

That's your choice.

One of the things that I like about this jig is this is now set up for this size drawer, so if I need to make a bunch of these, it's pretty easy to do.

Another thing I like is that you can create a couple of different styles of drawer joints with this.

If you'd like to see those, they're outlined in the plans.

Those plans are available on our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

Building a jig to cut dovetails on your table saw is a lot like building a typical crosscut sled, so I'm gonna talk about some of those similarities first, and then we'll get into the differences.

Now, where it's gonna start is by creating a large plywood base.

Then we're gonna add a bridge or a front fence to the jig.

And what this does is hold the plywood base together, 'cause you're gonna inevitably cut it in two as you're cutting the dovetails.

Now, the jig slides on a miter bar that runs in the miter gauge slot in your table saw table.

Now, the miter bar that we're using here is made out of phenolic.

It's a type of resin.

It doesn't expand and contract like wood does, but you can still cut it and shape it with all your typical woodworking tools, so it's a nice choice here.

Now, where things get a little bit different is for the back fence.

And the fence is gonna attach on this the rear portion of the base, and you'll do that through a set of holes that you're gonna drill.

Now, the first set holds the fence so that it's perpendicular to the saw blade.

And you want to do that because for one set of cuts, the blade is gonna be tilted and the fence is gonna be square.

For your other cuts, for the pins, the fence is gonna be tilted and the blade is gonna be square.

Now, we're gonna be cutting dovetails with a 10 degree angle on it.

So both this back position and front position are 10 degrees off of our center line.

Which brings us to the second major component of the jig, and that's the fence.

Now, the fence is a pretty simple construction.

We have a base and a face here, and it's supported by a set of four braces, because the fence face is so tall to support a workpiece.

Now, with two of these braces, we're gonna cut a slot or a dado on the inside faces, and that's to hold this piece of polycarbonate that acts as a blade cover.

In the middle of cutting, the last thing that you want to do is to end up having an accident and accidentally cutting one of your fingers, so the blade cover is just a physical and a visual reminder to keep your hands away.

And I did that just using a dado blade and making sure, because you're creating two mirror-image pieces here, so that you have the dado lining up with each other.

On the front of the jig, we'll need to cut a groove to hold a length of T-track that's gonna hold some adjustable keys.

I'll get to that in just a little bit.

Now, to cut that groove, I set up a dado blade on the table saw and sized it to match the width of that T-track.

Not all T-track is exactly the same, so you're gonna want to make a couple of test cuts to dial in the fit.

Once that's done, one other cut that you'll need to make is a channel across the center of the face, and that's to hold a replaceable hardboard backer.

Now to hold the backer in place, the channel is shaped like a dovetail.

Seems to make sense, considering the jig that we're working on here.

So in order to make this, I headed over to the router table and installed the dovetailed bit.

Now, the height of the bit matches the thickness of the hardboard.

Now, because of how wide this is, you're just gonna have to make that in a series of passes, working your way from one side of the dado to the other.

I used a miter gauge to guide the piece and to keep it square.

Once you're done, it's a good idea to sand the bottom surface, just to have a smooth, even surface to reference these replaceable inserts on.

The inserts, like I said, are just made out of hardboard, and they have a matching slope on each side to fit securely into that dovetail channel.

Make a few of these while you're at it, 'cause as you're cutting the dovetails, it's slowly going to get chewed up.

You can just flip it around and get double duty out of it, but over time, you're just gonna want to have a few extras to replace later on.

Now, the fence itself attaches to the base with a pivot bolt on one end and an adjustable pin on the other.

Now, the adjustable pin is made from a standard plastic knob that we've threaded a section of a long bolt into it and then cut off the threads so that it's just the smooth shank, and that's gonna allow the fence to get a nice registration in each of the holes as you adjust it.

Now, the only other thing that you'll need to make here is a set of keys that will fit into the T-track.

It doesn't really matter the size of the keys.

You're gonna make them to match the size and the spacing of the dovetails that you're gonna create.

You can make them out of MDF, like these, or plywood -- and again, make them to match the size that you want.

That's starting to get into the use of this jig, and for that, I'm gonna turn things back over to Logan to show you how this works.

When it comes to using dovetails in a project, most of the time people think about either hand-cutting them or using a router jig to cut them.

But with this jig that Phil built, we can go ahead and cut those dovetails here at the table saw.

Now, we'll talk about the jig in a minute.

First, let's talk about the blade, because you do need a special blade for this.

The blade that I've loaded up in here is specially-ground dovetail blade.

That means the top of each tooth is at a certain angle.

In this case, it's 10 degrees.

So to create a flat bottomed kerf, we're gonna tilt the blade to match the grind of the tooth.

So in this case, it's 10 degrees, and I just used a digital, magnetic angle gauge, snapped on to the blade, and tilted it until the readout is that 80 degrees, or 10 degrees from 90.

One of the beauties about this jig is that you don't have to lay out your dovetails on each workpiece.

Instead, what we'll do is we'll layout our dovetails on one end of one workpiece, and on the rest of the workpieces, we'll simply scribe out a shoulder line.

Then, that shoulder line matches the thickness of the mating workpieces.

Now, to create the tails, we're gonna use a series of spacers that slide into these T-tracks here.

So the first thing that we're gonna do is make a kerf in this newly-made jig.

We're gonna set the blade height to match that shoulder line.

So now we'll take our workpiece that we have laid out our dovetails on, and we're gonna align this so that we're gonna make our first cut on the half pin that's gonna be on the edge.

There we go.

So now that I have that tightened down, we're going to make a cut.

We'll spin it around, make another cut, and we'll also flip the workpiece end for end and make that cut on both shoulders on the opposite end.

We'll do that on both of the workpieces that have the tails on them.

So now we have the first kerf made for the half pins.

Now we go ahead and do the first full pin.

And to do that, we're gonna remove this hardboard backer and we're gonna slide in a spacer.

Now, the spacer is gonna position the board a little bit further in.

And the spacer is really designated by the size of dovetails you're making.

The spacer size is equal to the width between the first full pin and the half pin in the center of the waste area.

So you can kind of see that guy, there.

So we'll slide this guy into place.

Tighten it down.

Go ahead and put our backer piece back in.

And then we can just position our workpiece, verify with our laid-out dovetails that the kerf is gonna be in the right spot.

So we'll make that kerf and we'll flip it around, make another cut, then we'll flip it end for end, make those two cuts, and then we'll swap that out for our other tail board.

We're gonna make those cuts on both tail boards, and then we're gonna add one more spacer.

And this spacer is gonna position it for that final cut on the inside of the tail that's left.

So once that final cut's made, I'm gonna do a little chisel work to remove that waste that's left, and then we'll talk about making it the pins.

[ Chisel taps ] So now that I have all the waste chopped out of our tail boards, we can go ahead and use these guys to lay out our pins.

Now I've done that here.

And we just need to lay out one end of the workpiece like we did with the tails, but make sure you clearly mark where the waste area is, otherwise you could end up cutting on the wrong side of the line.

So I've reset the table saw up and I've put in a ripping blade, and I've reset it to 90 degrees, and this is what we'll use to cut the sockets out.

I've also adjusted the fence here.

I've adjusted this from the square position to the first 10 degree mark that Phil made.

So now it's a simple matter of positioning our board and setting our first stop block -- I've removed all the spacers -- setting our first stop block to cut inside the waste area on that first socket.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna sneak up on the cut until that first half pin fits in that shoulder area that we removed on the tail board.

Once we have that fitting how we want it, we'll make that cut, and then we will flip the workpiece and cut that first half pin on the opposite corner.

Then we'll do that on both of the pin boards and then we'll go ahead and add the spacers in to continue to cut the joints.

Okay, so with those first cuts made, now we can simply pull the pin, pivot this to the next 10 degree mark, and that's gonna allow us to cut the opposite side of the joint.

The process here is gonna be exactly the same -- we'll sneak up on that half pin fit and then we'll add the spacers to cut the rest of the joints.

Okay, there we go.

So after flipping the fence to the opposite 10 degree angle and cutting the other face on those pins, all you have left to do is reset the fence and nibble away the waste.

You'll be left with a couple of little corners that are easy to clean up with the chisel.

But then, after you have those all cleaned up, a little bit of glue, some sanding, you'll be left with really nice dovetails people might not believe were made at the table saw.

Building easy-to-use jigs like this drawer joint jig or the dovetail jig for your table saw not only helps you do better work, I think it also helps you enjoy the time that you spend in your shop.

Now, if you want to build one or both of them, the plans are on our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

It's also the place to find other great woodworking plans, videos, and a whole lot more.

And then we'll see you right back here next time in the Woodsmith Shop.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- tools for designing and building your products.

Inventables.com.