I still like cutting dovetails by hand, but I came up with this idea to speed up the process a bit. I made two tapered jigs, one with a slope of 1:6 and another at 1:8, as shown. I mark the locations of the tails on both sides of the workpiece and roughly position the fence. Then I do the “fine-tuning” by sliding the tapered jig forwards or backwards. When I’m satisfied, I tape the workpiece to the jig and make my cuts. With one side done, you simply flip the workpiece, fine-tune and cut again. I remove the waste with a chisel, then mark and cut the pins by hand in the usual way. If you are making multiple dovetails – drawer sides, for example – you can stack the pieces on each other with double-sided tape and cut them all at once.
