Getting the Most from Your Festool VS-600 Dovetail System

1 Getting The Most From The Festool VS-600 Jointing System By: Jerry Work Table of Contents Page 3 Anatomy of a Dovetail Joint 9 The desired outcome – a perfect drawer every time 10 How the VS-600 system works 14 A perfect drawer using half blind dovetail joints 23 A perfect drawer using through dovetail joints 29 Perfect finger joints 31 Conclusion 32 One time setup 36 Using the metric system 40 Continuous improvement 41 What you need to know about the Festool templates 42 How to calculate drawer height for properly centered joints 43 Table of drawer heights for properly centered joints 43 Metric to approximate inch conversion 44 Meet the author 2 Getting The Most From The Festool VS-600 Jointing System By: Jerry Work Few things in woodworking invoke the image of quality more than well cut dovetails joining the sides of a drawer, box or cabinet. For thousands of years this simple, elegant joint has been employed by the finest craftsmen for its inherent strength as well as for its pleasing aesthetics. Watch a person who sees a fine piece of furniture for the first time. Their hands will invariably rub over the dovetail joints as though to confirm that this is truly a well crafted piece. Anatomy of a breaking the surrounding Dovetail Joint wood. There are several different types of joints that are all called “Dovetail Joints”. They get their name from a fan shaped male piece that looks a bit like the tail on a dove. That fan shaped male fits into a A dovetail joint requires at female recess of the same least one fan shaped male tail shape. The strength of the joint does and at least one female fan not rely on glue, nails or shaped recess. It may have screws. It comes from the two, three or many more fan interference fit of the male and shaped male tails and female fan shapes. You simply corresponding female recesses, cannot pull them apart but it must have at least one to without breaking the wood. be a joint at all. Once in place the joint cannot be pulled apart without 3 If these are both cut with exactly the same slope on the sides and to the same depth the two pieces can slide together to form a very strong, Before we start learning to use self-locking joint called a dovetail joints to build perfect “sliding dovetail” joint. drawers, boxes and cabinets far faster than you ever thought possible, let’s spend a I regularly use sliding few moments discussing how dovetails instead of dados to these different joints, all called join the two sides of a cabinet “dovetail joints,” differ one together to form the door or from another. drawer openings as in the picture above, or to hold All can be used to securely join shelves that tie the two sides two pieces of wood end to end These are most often cut with together. I also use it for or at right angles to one a router bit with sloped sides fastening drawer guides to the another, but that is about (called a “dovetail cutter”) sides of a drawer opening, for where the similarities end and where the router is guided fastening the toe kick across the differences begin. past stationary work pieces in the bottom of a cabinet, to hold a straight line. Sometimes this the top to the sides, and for a The Sliding Dovetail is accomplished using a guide variety of situations when I Joint - The simplest joint rail (my favorite) and need two pieces joined at right called a dovetail joint is where sometimes by holding the angles to one another in a very the male fan shape is cut router stationary while the secure and self-squaring joint. laterally along an edge or an work pieces slide by in a end of one work piece and the straight line guided by a fence. female recess is grooved into the other. They also can be cut on jigs which hold the work piece stationary and slide the router past the work piece. 4 The pictures above and below show a side slat assembly for a large bookcase that is held together with sliding dovetails. Once you start using sliding dovetails you will rarely revert to simple dados again. 5 The Half-Blind Dovetail Often, like with the VS-600, Joint - The second kind of both parts of the joint can be joint that is called a “dovetail cut simultaneously, and the joint” is where the female joints in two sides of a drawer recess is cut on the end of one or box can be set up and cut at work piece and only part way the same time. The manual for through the thickness of that the Festool VS-600 refers to work piece forming a socket this as simply a “dovetail into which the male fan shape joint”. We will talk a lot more cut in the other work piece is later about how to do these trapped. joints quickly and accurately. The female recess portion of the joint is normally cut with a straight router bit guided by a The Through Dovetail template where the sides of Joint - The third kind of each finger are angled at “dovetail” joint is where the exactly the same angle male and female parts of the designed into the dovetail joint are cut all the way router bit. through the thickness of each work piece. This is commonly The angle machined into the called a “through dovetail” template and the angle although the Festool VS-600 machined on the router bit manual refers to this as an must be exactly the same or “open dovetail tenon”. It is a the two halves of the joint Since the joint can only be seen far more complex and simply will not fit together. from the side where the fan confusing joint to machine shape is cut, it is most than either a sliding dovetail This is one reason I always commonly called a “half or a half blind dovetail. The recommend using ONLY blind” dovetail joint. These male fan shaped portion of the router bits manufactured by are most often cut by a joint is normally cut with a the same company that dovetail shaped router bit dovetail shaped router bit with produces the through dovetail guided by a template where the router guided by a template. the male fan shape is cut with template with straight sides on that work piece held vertically each finger of the template. Nothing can ruin your day and the female socket cut with faster than to be frustrated by that work piece held the fact that the angle actually horizontally. cut by an off brand router bit is slightly different from how it is marked, and that is slightly different from the angle on the fingers of the template. No matter how hard you try, you will never get a good fitting 6 joint out of a mismatched combination. Throughout this manual I will refer to the male and female The through dovetail can also parts of the joint trying to be a confusing joint to cut avoid the confusing tail and because when you look at the pin descriptions. work piece with the female recesses you can either see the Other joints also called recesses, or you may instead The male “dovetail” joints – There see the uncut portion between portion is cut using a template are a few other joints that also two recesses that are called the where the sides of the guide trap one work piece to another “pins”. If those uncut portions fingers are straight while the by a male with angled sides are between one side of the female portion is cut using a mating with a female recess outboard most recess and the template where the sides of the with the same angled sides. If edge of the work piece, they guide fingers are angled. the male and female portions are called “half pins”. It is are cut in the ends of two work hard, especially at first, to keep In Festool speak, the template pieces they can be joined flat, straight which work piece is for cutting the male fan shape end to end and are usually the male (most often called the is labeled as an SZO-14-S or called a “flat dovetail” joint. If “tail board”) and which is the SZO-20-S, while the template the female portion is cut into female (most often called the with the angled fingers for the ends of both work pieces “pin” board). cutting the female recesses is and a separate male piece is I’ll try to take a bit of the labeled as an SZO-14-Z or an machined with the fan shape confusion out of this when we SZO-20-Z. at each end, that joint is talk about how to cut perfect usually called a “butterfly” through dovetails using the It really doesn’t matter what dovetail joint. We will not be Festool VS-600. The Festool you call these two as long as discussing these flat or manual talks about the male you are clear that you will use butterfly dovetail joints in this fan shaped portion as the the S for cutting the fan manual. “dovetail” and the female shaped male “tails,” as shown recess or pin board as the in the picture above right, and Advantages - Besides the “tenons”, terminology I find the Z for cutting the female inherent strength of any of confusing myself.

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