# Diff between rounded and traditionally shaped half blind dovetails?



## toddbeaulieu (Mar 5, 2010)

Hello,

After trying my hand at hand made half blinds I decided I don't have the time to learn everything at once and I have a lot of work to do in the shop to get it to the point where I can have fun with the basics.

I bought the Porter Cable 4216 jig, which has three templates and four bits.

I spent the morning experimenting with it and was able to make some decent joints for a wall cabinet. I didn't realize that this jig would make rounded tails/pins. In this case I'm fine with that, but I'd really like to be able to make traditional joints, as with drawer fronts.

Is this possible with this jig? Could I use the "through" template for this?


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## Mosquito (Feb 15, 2012)

No. The bit will only do round. You could make the tail board straight, but the pin board will have to be rounded, unless you chop them out square yourself. Just a limitation of the way the router works.

Edit: This is assuming that you're still talking about half blinds with the jig


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

You can do it with a through template but you have to use
chisels inside the joints to do the corners. Your tails would
be cut as "through" tails while your pin boards would have
rounded insides to the joints.

Incidentally you can use the router to cut the pins and cut
the tails with a band saw. Then you either round off the
tails or chisel the pin recesses "square".


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## toddbeaulieu (Mar 5, 2010)

Thank you both. I know that once I have more experience with this I'll realize what a dumb question it was! But for now, I have a lot to learn …


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