Popular Woodworking 2007-12 № 166, страница 54

2 Finish the tails. Next it is necessary to "finish" the tails by carefully removing the material on the back (or inside) of each of the tails. This is necessary to ensure the proper fit of the joint. Start at the left-hand side of the jig and carefully move the router from left to right between the template fingers, slightly "dipping" between the template fingers. (It is not necessary that this be a perfectly straight cut since it will be hidden in the assembled joint.)

I usually make this cut slightly concave-just to ensure there will be no interference with the tail socket. Make sure you do not remove too much material as this will begin to affect the strength of the joint (obviously if you cut all the way through the tail you will have ruined the piece).

3 Rough cut the tail sockets. Once the drawer side is complete we turn our attention to the drawer front (or pin board). First, unclamp the drawer side and lower it so the top of the tails are just below the tail sockets on the drawer front and then re-clamp (this is so the router bit will clear the top of the tails when cutting the tail sockets). Now rout out all of the tail sockets as you normally would.

5 Rout between the fingers. Once the drawer front is marked and secure in the jig, rout out the marked areas between the template fingers. After this is complete you should be left with very thin sections of the former pins. Now unclamp the drawer front and slide it toward the inboard end of the jig (to the left) until these thin sections are centered in the template finger slots. As before, use the drawer side as a reference to square up the drawer front.

Clamp the drawer front and hog out the marked sections. At this point it should begin to become obvious how we are manipulating the jig to produce the wide tail sockets. Once this is done, unclamp the drawer front, slide the piece in the opposite direction (to the right) until the remaining thin sections are centered in the template slots (again use the secured drawer side as a reference to square the drawer front in the jig) and repeat the cutting procedure.

6 Ready to assemble. If you performed these last several steps correctly when you remove the drawer front from the jig you will see two wide tail sockets that should perfectly match up to the wide tails previously cut. The joint is now complete and ready to be assembled. PW

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