# New Leigh D4R Pro



## Jetpack (15 d ago)

New member and not sure if I should start a new thread about this. The last review thread for the D4R was in July. Apologies if inappropriate.

I'm building a full new kitchen for my house and just invested in a Leigh D4R Pro Dovetail jig. Got it last week and started making drawers today. Wow. At this point I've only used it for through dovetails, but after an hour or two of reading and trial cuts, the jig certainly outperforms my expectations. 

I'm an occasional hobbyist woodworker and was afraid of internet "wisdom" about the steep learning curve of these jigs. Here is reassurance for others like me out there that might be thinking the pain outweighs the benefit. From my experience on the simple through dovetails, it certainly doesn't! The pain was minor and the joy of being able to cut a dozen clean dovetails in a few minutes is astounding. Sure, hand cutting dovetails is nice and soulful, but the reality of using a router to blast through them provides its own benefits. 

Early lessons: 1) I first made a mistake of cutting the tails on the back-side of the guide. Needed to rotate the guide in the horizontal plane by 180 so I wasn't hitting the guide bushing on the little guide stubs. 2) hogging waste is pretty zen with little sweeps, 3) the easy depth adjustment turret on a Makita 3612 makes it awesome for this jig 4) don't leave any finger bolts of the non-used guides loose while cutting.

Outstanding question: I really don't see the benefit of the eccentric guide bushing. Why not just adjust the width of the tails? Anyway, joints are rocking, so no problems with it on.

This was just a post in case it helps others on the fence about this jig.

Best regards and hope you are enjoying 2023.


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## LesB (Dec 21, 2008)

Glad you were able to do the work you needed with it. I have had one for years and every time I use it I have to re-read the instructions. Since than I found the Panto Router system and bought one of those. Much easier and faster and more intuitive for, dovetails, finger joints, and M&Ts, to use in my opinion...but it doesn't cut blind dovetails but they are working on it.


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