Router Dado Jig

My first jig ever. I’m going to be building a massive closet storage system in our new house soon and I wanted to make clean, easy dados for many of the shelves. I got the idea from a publication I found on the web. The link is below. Mine isn’t as pretty since I our local home store doesn’t carry any “jig” worthy hardware, so I just used wing nuts. This was actually the first time I used my router, besides making random cuts in scrap wood.

The jig is made of 3/4” MDF with the exception of one piece that’s 1/2” MDF. I made the grooves to hold the hex bolts with 1/2” and 1/4” straight bits. I actually broke my 1/4” bit, so I went and bought a new one with a 1/2” shank, which worked much better.

The idea behind this jig is to be able to cut dados for any width stock without measuring. It works surprisingly well if you have it setup correctly.

As you can see in the last picture, you need to make sure the stock that is being cut is secure. I didn’t realize that the wood had shifted and it made a very unusual shaped dado. Thank goodness it was just some scrap wood I used to test the jig.

Link to the original article

-- David < Ridgecrest, CA >