Cutting Dovetails with Shaper Origin

It's all about precisely removing waste.

- By Andrew Zoellner

1 I used Shaper's dovetail generator for Fusion 360. Though the image looks complicated, it's really just generating two SVG files used for cutting the dovetails. Input the details of your stock and router bit, number of pins, and the file is updated to your specific joint, with equally spaced pins and tails.

Shaper Origin and Workstation are still pretty new to our woodworking world, but I’ve gotten to spend lots of time with the system over the last year. And it’s really quite incredible. Using a series of domino-looking shapes on a flat surface, the Origin is able to tell precisely where the machine is. As you cut, the router inside the Origin moves within the base, allowing it to precisely track a line (even if you aren’t able to do it with just your body). It will cut precisely to the line, inside or outside the line, and even offset from the line by a fixed amount.

Woodworking really boils down to being able to cut precisely to layout lines, and that’s what the Origin excels at. It’s a handheld CNC router that you can use on almost any flat surface, whether that’s an inlay on the lid of a tool chest, a medallion on a hardwood floor, or the edge of a board (as we’ll explore here).

Making Tails and Pins