triton router and dovetailing

welcome N/A to the forums..
the size of the bit is up to you and if you have a better quality bit you should do fine...
just hog out the most material you can w/ a straight bit 1st...

You need to get a 1/4" collet for your Triton anyway. You'll find lots of uses for it. I don't think bits break from too much power, they break from too high a feed rate. With a powerful router and a small bit, you won't get the audible clues from the motor slowing down that you're feeding too fast like you would with less horsepower. Just don't push too fast and you'll be fine.

I have a Sommerfeld Katey Jig, which lets you use it on the table instead of freehand. I would not find it easy to horse that Triton around freehand on something like a PC jig. There are other, similar jigs that works the same way (Incra I think). The height of the bit is set a hair more than the thickness of the stock. The company's match bit sets make setting up a llittle easier. You can look up the jigs on YouTube.

Thanks for your input, I will get the 1/4"collet and take it steady
PC

Welcome! Nice to see a good Yorkshire name on here, Cullingworth.

Welcome to the forum.

Your last word concerns me. "Ply" meaning plywood. Making dovetails in plywood with a router bit is difficult because it splinters so easily. It can be done if the plywood is high quality like Baltic Birch, but you will likely also need a sacrificial piece on both sides of the work to keep the edges of the cuts from splintering.

The other posters seem to have the rest covered well, so I'll not comment on how to cut the dovetails except to say that using big routers is going to be very tiring if you will be cutting a lot of dovetails.

Charley

Tom, and Charley, he says its in a table. weight isnt an issue.
Cutting in ply certainly is. backing board on every single cut required.

Yes born 20 miles from the village "Cullingworth" but I cannot find any of my ancestors buried in the church graveyard.

Sorry being out of sinc. with the last thread, I posted the replay following the "Yorkshire" comment from job & knock then the page re-loaded.
Picking up on the comment about using ply for drawers what is a better wood to use?
I am thinking 1200mm width X 200mm height say 550mm depth with a painted MRMDF drawer front to build as part of a MRMDF wardrobe unit.
Thanks
PC

A better alternative to plywood for dovetailed drawers would be something like steamed beech - which is what a lot of the trade drawer box guys use (in the UK) precisely because it dovetails well (they use Brookman multi spindles a lot). Alternatively, and if you can source it, recycled Quebec yellow pine is brilliant stuff for drawers and quite traditional - but use recycled stuff as the modern yellow pine we see from merchants is abysmal stuff in comparison to the old stuff