Hand cutting dovetails vs. router jig: which actually saves you time in the long run?

I spent the last 3 weekends building a set of drawers for a library job I had. I tried doing the dovetails by hand for the first two drawers, took me about 4 hours each. Then I caved and used my router jig for the last three drawers, got each one done in about 45 minutes. But the hand cut ones are so much cleaner and fit tighter. I'm torn on which approach to stick with for production work. Has anyone else dealt with this trade off and found a good middle ground?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jason17d ago

The hand cut thing is a trap for sure. I spent a whole winter once cutting dovetails by hand for a single jewelry box and by the end I hated the sight of them. But then I sold that box for a lot more than my router jig stuff because some guy went on about the "handcrafted look." So now I do half and half. I cut the pins by hand and use the router for the tails on big runs. It gives that rough charm but saves my back from bending over a bench all day. Plus a little glue and sawdust hides any gaps the router leaves, nobody checks that close anyway.

noah41517d ago

The quiet secret nobody talks about is that half the guys buying "hand cut" stuff couldn't tell the difference if you swapped them out blind. Your half and half method sounds like a smart way to keep your sanity and still cash in on the story behind it.