Trend 300mm Half-Blind Dovetail Jig, Dovetail Router Bit & Guide Bush for Accurate and Easy Dovetail Joinery, CDJ300, 12 in.

I've now used this jig for about a month or so and am very pleased with it. It's extremely well engineered and very sturdy being made from steel/zinc plated steel and weighing in at 6.2kg. Trend makes two sizes of this jig, the one I have and am reviewing is the 300mm model but they also make a 600mm wide jig both of which cut 12.7mm (1/2 inch) wide half blind dovetails/rebated dovetails in material thickness of 12mm - 25mm. The CJD300 makes joints of up to 300mm wide and the CJD600 up to 600mm wide. Assembly was easy and took 10 minutes or so following the well illustrated manual. The jig comes with a half-blind dovetail template but you can get dowel, box joint, and full dovetail templates too. In addition to the jig, there is also a 1/4 inch shanked 12.7mm two flute dovetail router bit and the required 15.8mm bushing to guide it through the jig. In order to use this jig the bushing needs to be attached to the base of the router. The bushing wouldn't fit my router plate so I had to buy Trends Unibase universal router sub base which was annoying and an added expense I wasn't expecting. In order for the 'universal' base to be used on my router I had to drill through it to make it fit. Not as universal as it implies!There are four edge guides, two on the left and two on the right. These can be moved to two different positions allowing your workpiece to have a full or half dovetail at one end. I think a sliding stop would be more versatile as you can then position the dovetails in other positions such as in centralising a joint. I may make one. Before routing the router bit needs to be set at a depth of 17mm which I did with my combination square. Putting in and aligning the workpieces is very easy however the setting up of the template is a bit tricky. I find getting it in the ballpark and then making a test or two on some scrap wood before committing to my work piece works for me. Once set up it's easy to use. You make a climbing cut on the front face to help alleviate tear out and then route from left to right in and out of the template's fingers. Small adjustments to the wood, the bit depth, and the template can be made if need be, such as when the joints are too loose or too tight.The photo is my 3rd go at making a joint, the first two attempts I used for dialing in/adjusting the router and workpiece.I think this jig is fantastic value for money, particularly at the Amazon discounted price. I would like to have seen options where the jig is bundled with a couple of different templates as well as the Unibase. I'll be buying other templates in the future. I highly recommend this jig.

Well built, solid item. Does the job. Not as finicky as other reviewers seem to indicate. Good videos on websites to get set up.

The jig itself is nice but the box was a bit deceiving showing through dovetails and box joints. To do “through” tails and box joints you need to buy additional combs and blades and neither are cheap. I wound up spending 2x the price of the unit to have flexibility in the types of joints. But again, it does the job well and once you get the hang of alighting the sides and fronts/backs it goes quickly, which is important when you have 6 drawer boxes to build that day. B the way the only comb that comes with this unit is the half lap dovetail which means you see the nice detail on the side of the drawer box but not on the front or back. This one works best if you plan to put a separate drawer front on the box after you’ve built it, which would hide the detail of a through tail anyway. Nice piece of kit but do plan to buy more accessories if you want different sizes and types of joints.

Whoa! This is a fabulous jig. It’s not set at a bad price point and I see that Amazon have negotiated a pretty hefty discount over the rrp. It is beautifully made and has nice heavy steel panels that don’t bend or sag and a beautifully weighted jig for cutting dovetails. With a little care and attention and a fair bit of practise, then it will deliver good results.I need to confess first of all that I am no DIY-er. Oh, don’t get me wrong I have got better with trial and error (more of the latter than the former) but there is still a long way to go. Nothing ventured however and I reckon if I can approach acceptable results then yours will probably be superb – so here are a few pointers that may be helpful.I totally agree that Youtube videos are a good starting point but some advice is confusing and conflicting, so work your way through what you see and make your own judgement. For instance, there is a washer on the laser cut comb thingy and depending on the positioning of this it will slightly alter the distance of the jig from the work so make sure you get this right and when you have stick to it. I position the comb jig behind the washers and then screw it home.The other thing you need to look at it is your router. I have a cheap router from a high street DIY chain. This being said, it is powerful. It takes ¼ and ½ inch bits and it will also take the router bush as supplied with the jig without problem - just a couple of screws. Most vitally it has a precise depth adjustment and this is very important if you are going to achieve success as I have found that by controlling the depth is the only way to get good results.I started out with some smooth planed softwood from high street DIY store and this allowed me lots of goes to gain experience.One video suggested drawing a 15mm line on the horizontal piece which works well and then using a depth of cut of 17mm. This wasn’t bad but the whole thing was tight and I found that as the wood is 10cms in width the end joint ie that on the right as you look at it is very thin and needs utmost care. I found also that as the two halves are tapped together this was the area that was most likely to splay and split even when I had machined this area very, very carefully.Of course anchoring your jig is vital so it doesn’t flap about and I found also that I had to do something that I hate - actually look at the cutter as it works through. To this end I used my glasses and also use a face shield (sorry I know they are used for other things just at present) but this too was important as I could look at the work as it went along and I could make sure that the router entered between the guide of the jig accurately and cleanly – or else I was getting rip outs and chippings from the pins and tails that then left gaps. By slowing things down and looking at the work this is minimised. The other thing is that one video suggested doing a preliminary pass across the front of the work but although this is not a bad idea it needs great care especially again on that right hand edge as this is the bit that will chip and even break off if you are not careful. I found that setting an offcut of wood next to the proper workpiece was really useful as it gave much better control of that vital and ever so sensitive right hand edge and it was machined more tidily with much less likelihood of breaking and chipping.Next I found that positioning the two pieces of work is vital. Take your time with this and make sure it’s accurate. I found that marking the position of the pieces of wood with a white crayon and then reinforcing these with a nice set square by drawing lines on the black surface of the jig is useful. One for the horizontal piece and one for the vertical. This means that the wood is straight and in the right position. The other mistake I made was failing to re-check the wood as I tighten the clamps of the jig as nearly always the wood shifts just a little bit. My next mistake was to press down the template jig but not check that it is level. An offcut of wood helps again with this but getting down and looking at the position of the template as regards to the wood to be machined is vital. At first I measured the distance of the template to the wood 3mm at both ends using a school plastic set square which is really useful for checking your work and its position before you begin.Next as you begin machining then take your time watch what you are doing and where that cutter is running to make sure it goes into and comes out of the fingers of the template smoothly and above all make sure you keep your router level. I found I was hanging on so tight that I was tipping the router down as I brought it away from the wood. You have to make sure you don’t do this and again looking directly at your work as it is cut helps.Lastly actually reducing the depth of the router bit helped enormously. The whole thing just came together so much easier. So I used a precise depth measure gauge – again a clear set square from a school kit will do – and reduced the depth of the cut. As I did so, I wrote on the wood of the trial joint the depth (of the router bit) of cut that I used and also measured the height of the tails and the distance from the top of the tail to the surface of the wood. I measured from the rim of the router bush guide to the tip of the cutting bit and made sure of course that I always measured in the same way.Reducing the cutting depth to just shy of 15mm was a breakthrough and the joint looked excellent. The only problem now was again that right hand edge. Instead of splaying apart the wood as I tapped it together there is now a gap. This isn’t a great problem but in order to rectify this you need to let the router stand proud a mm or so on that end slot of the jig. I have marked this end protrusion on the jig with marker pen to remind me but I am thinking a slight spacer here would be better to stop me from pushing the router home on this last cut as you move right.Photos show that vital right hand edge. One that is a bit too tight so that the wood has splayed apart and a couple where there is a slight gap when the router depth of cut was raised a couple of mm. Work continues! Happy woodworking.

Just received and not used yet. It is very easy to put together however, the reason only three stars, one of the stoppers was loose and would not thread. Fixed with some superglue but effectively means other jigs cannot be used. As I am a total beginner this does not unduly worry me as it will take time to learn the intricacies but a little disappointing.

Very easy to use, I get the job done right the first time, and saves me money on timber, the price was good, very glad to have bought it.

Easy to set up, can take a while for fine adjustments, but on the whole great product. Supplied with 1/2 blind jig, shame through dovetail plate is so expensive, nearly as much again.