The other part of the design is board height. Use a small stepover (0.06”) and an offset cutting strategy.
CNC DOVETAIL BIT FULL
Then I will use the dovetail bit, defined as an endmill with a 0.359” diameter, to make a full depth cut that will create the angled sides of the tails. For cutting sequence first I will use the rectangles and a ¼” bit to clear out the waste material to full depth. This is so the dovetail bit can plunge to full depth when doing a pocket cut without cutting the sides of your workpiece where you don’t want it to.
CNC DOVETAIL BIT PLUS
The length needs to be the thickness of the wood (0.5”) plus a little more. I round up to 0.5” for my spacing.įirst I layout three rectangles about 0.5” wide. So those parameters are all you need to complete the design.įirst thing to find out is what is the diameter of the dovetail bit at 0.5”(depth of cut) from the bottom? You can use trig, or you can just draw it in vectors to find out it is 0.359” and that is as close as you can get for your dovetail to dovetail spacing. It just looks less clunky than ¾” for this size. at the bottom) and an 8-degree side angle (from the center of the tool to the side is 8 degrees) you can pick one up in HD or Lowes.įor a medium sized box, say 6” to 15” across the front, I like to use ½” thick material. In this case I’m using a dovetail bit with a 0.5” major diameter (biggest dia. In designing dovetail cuts in the software, the design must make its concessions to the tool used.
many small dovetails spread far apart) and are more than strong enough. For box sides this gives you plenty of surface area for glue up, the dovetails look like a more prominent feature (vs. 2” to 4” gets 2 dovetails, and 4-5 gets 3 dovetails.
Board width of 2” or less gets one dovetail. As a rule of thumb, I like to follow the old woodworker’s standards for building a box with dovetails. I have not used the dovetail gadgets that you can find on the Vectric website or user produced gadgets, but some of the advice below will also be very useful with them. This is how you can usually tell if a dovetail was machine cut or hand cut. With hand cutting you can make small pins, much smaller than with CNC because the cutter size limits you. CNC cutting is the aesthetics of the design. The biggest difference in hand cutting vs. I see a lot of the paradise design, which is a good box, but I see very little to none with dovetails on the CNC, so I thought it might be good to pass on some of my knowledge to you so when you’re tired of cutting signs and plaques (which make great box tops), you’ll be able to knock out a dovetail box quickly. My go to have most recently been the dovetail joint, and I love cutting those by hand, but have done many with my CNC. Some with box joints, most with dovetails, and some with special CNC designed joints. I’ve made a lot of boxes for people and myself.
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