Festool VS-600 Instruction Manual

1

Getting The Most From The Festool VS-600 Jointing System

By: Jerry Work

Table of Contents

Page

3 Anatomy of a Dovetail Joint
9 The desired outcome – a perfect drawer every time

10 How the VS-600 system works

14 A perfect drawer using half blind dovetail joints

23 A perfect drawer using through dovetail joints

29 Perfect finger joints

31 Conclusion

32 One time setup

36 Using the metric system

40 Continuous improvement

41 What you need to know about the Festool templates

42 How to calculate drawer height for properly centered joints

43 Table of drawer heights for properly centered joints

43 Metric to approximate inch conversion

44 Meet the author

2

Getting The Most From The Festool VS-600
Jointing System

Few things in woodworking invoke the image of quality more than well cut dovetails
joining the sides of a drawer, box or cabinet. For thousands of years this simple, elegant
joint has been employed by the finest craftsmen for its inherent strength as well as for
its pleasing aesthetics. Watch a person who sees a fine piece of furniture for the first
time. Their hands will invariably rub over the dovetail joints as though to confirm that
this is truly a well crafted piece.

Anatomy of a
Dovetail Joint

There are several different
types of joints that are all
called “Dovetail Joints”. They
get their name from a fan
shaped male piece that looks a
bit like the tail on a dove. That
fan shaped male fits into a
female recess of the same
shape.

By: Jerry Work

breaking the surrounding
wood.

The strength of the joint does
not rely on glue, nails or
screws. It comes from the
interference fit of the male and
female fan shapes. You simply
cannot pull them apart
without breaking the wood.

A dovetail joint requires at
least one fan shaped male tail
and at least one female fan
shaped recess. It may have
two, three or many more fan
shaped male tails and
corresponding female recesses,
but it must have at least one to
be a joint at all.

Once in place the joint cannot
be pulled apart without

3

Before we start learning to use
dovetail joints to build perfect
drawers, boxes and cabinets
far faster than you ever
thought possible, let’s spend a
few moments discussing how
these different joints, all called
“dovetail joints,” differ one
from another.

All can be used to securely join
two pieces of wood end to end
or at right angles to one
another, but that is about
where the similarities end and
the differences begin.

The Sliding Dovetail
Joint

called a dovetail joint is where
the male fan shape is cut
laterally along an edge or an
end of one work piece and the
female recess is grooved into
the other.

- The simplest joint

If these are both cut with
exactly the same slope on the
sides and to the same depth
the two pieces can slide
together to form a very strong,
self-locking joint called a
“sliding dovetail” joint.

These are most often cut with
a router bit with sloped sides
(called a “dovetail cutter”)
where the router is guided
past stationary work pieces in
a straight line. Sometimes this
is accomplished using a guide
rail (my favorite) and
sometimes by holding the
router stationary while the
work pieces slide by in a
straight line guided by a fence.

They also can be cut on jigs
which hold the work piece
stationary and slide the router
past the work piece.

I regularly use sliding
dovetails instead of dados to
join the two sides of a cabinet
together to form the door or
drawer openings as in the
picture above, or to hold
shelves that tie the two sides
together. I also use it for
fastening drawer guides to the
sides of a drawer opening, for
fastening the toe kick across
the bottom of a cabinet, to hold
the top to the sides, and for a
variety of situations when I
need two pieces joined at right
angles to one another in a very
secure and self-squaring joint.

4

The pictures above and below
show a side slat assembly for a
large bookcase that is held
together with sliding
dovetails.

Once you start using sliding
dovetails you will rarely revert
to simple dados again.

5

The Half-Blind Dovetail
Joint

joint that is called a “dovetail
joint” is where the female
recess is cut on the end of one
work piece and only part way
through the thickness of that
work piece forming a socket
into which the male fan shape
cut in the other work piece is
trapped.

Since the joint can only be seen
from the side where the fan
shape is cut, it is most
commonly called a “half
blind” dovetail joint. These
are most often cut by a
dovetail shaped router bit
guided by a template where
the male fan shape is cut with
that work piece held vertically
and the female socket cut with
that work piece held
horizontally.

- The second kind of

Often, like with the VS-600,
both parts of the joint can be
cut simultaneously, and the
joints in two sides of a drawer
or box can be set up and cut at
the same time. The manual for
the Festool VS-600 refers to
this as simply a “dovetail
joint”. We will talk a lot more
later about how to do these
joints quickly and accurately.

The Through Dovetail
Joint

“dovetail” joint is where the
male and female parts of the
joint are cut all the way
through the thickness of each
work piece. This is commonly
called a “through dovetail”
although the Festool VS-600
manual refers to this as an
“open dovetail tenon”. It is a
far more complex and
confusing joint to machine
than either a sliding dovetail
or a half blind dovetail. The
male fan shaped portion of the
joint is normally cut with a
dovetail shaped router bit with
the router guided by a
template with straight sides on
each finger of the template.

- The third kind of

The female recess portion of
the joint is normally cut with a
straight router bit guided by a
template where the sides of
each finger are angled at
exactly the same angle
designed into the dovetail
router bit.

The angle machined into the
template and the angle
machined on the router bit
must be exactly the same or
the two halves of the joint
simply will not fit together.

This is one reason I always
recommend using ONLY
router bits manufactured by
the same company that
produces the through dovetail
template.

Nothing can ruin your day
faster than to be frustrated by
the fact that the angle actually
cut by an off brand router bit is
slightly different from how it
is marked, and that is slightly
different from the angle on the
fingers of the template. No
matter how hard you try, you
will never get a good fitting

6

joint out of a mismatched
combination.

The through dovetail can also
be a confusing joint to cut
because when you look at the
work piece with the female
recesses you can either see the
recesses, or you may instead
see the uncut portion between
two recesses that are called the
“pins”. If those uncut portions
are between one side of the
outboard most recess and the
edge of the work piece, they
are called “half pins”. It is
hard, especially at first, to keep
straight which work piece is
the male (most often called the
“tail board”) and which is the
female (most often called the
“pin” board).
I’ll try to take a bit of the
confusion out of this when we
talk about how to cut perfect
through dovetails using the
Festool VS-600. The Festool
manual talks about the male
fan shaped portion as the
“dovetail” and the female
recess or pin board as the
“tenons”, terminology I find
confusing myself.

Fortunately, it is easy to see
the difference by looking at the
template used for these two
portions of the joint.

The male
portion is cut using a template
where the sides of the guide
fingers are straight while the
female portion is cut using a
template where the sides of the
guide fingers are angled.

In Festool speak, the template
for cutting the male fan shape
is labeled as an SZO-14-S or
SZO-20-S, while the template
with the angled fingers for
cutting the female recesses is
labeled as an SZO-14-Z or an
SZO-20-Z.

It really doesn’t matter what
you call these two as long as
you are clear that you will use
the S for cutting the fan
shaped male “tails,” as shown
in the picture above right, and
the Z for cutting the female
recesses separated by “pins.”

Throughout this manual I will
refer to the male and female
parts of the joint trying to
avoid the confusing tail and
pin descriptions.

Other joints also called
“dovetail” joints

are a few other joints that also
trap one work piece to another
by a male with angled sides
mating with a female recess
with the same angled sides. If
the male and female portions
are cut in the ends of two work
pieces they can be joined flat,
end to end and are usually
called a “flat dovetail” joint. If
the female portion is cut into
the ends of both work pieces
and a separate male piece is
machined with the fan shape
at each end, that joint is
usually called a “butterfly”
dovetail joint. We will not be
discussing these flat or
butterfly dovetail joints in this
manual.

– There

Advantages - Besides the

inherent strength of any of
these kinds of dovetail joints,
another great advantage of a
well machined dovetail joint is
that they are inherently self­aligning. The bottom of the
fan shaped male protrusion
ends in flats which are exactly
the same level as the surface
into which the female grove or
socket is cut in the mating side
of the joint. The flat on one

7

piece is held tight against the
surface of the other thereby
holding the two parts
perpendicular to one another
on half-blind, through and
sliding dovetails, and exactly
end to end on flat dovetail or
butterfly joints.

If your cuts are made with
precision, when you assemble
your piece it will be nearly
perfectly square just from the
dovetail joints themselves.

So why are dovetail

joints so intimidating

for many?

Since these are self-aligning,
self-squaring joints of extreme
strength, why is it that they are
not regularly used by all
woodworkers as the preferred
method of joining two work
pieces together? And, why is
it that the term “dovetail joint”
also can strike such fear and
intimidation in so many
woodworkers?

One part of the answer is that
for the joint to work well both
the male and the female
portions of the joint have to be
cut with extreme precision. If
the angles and sizes of the
male fan shapes and the
corresponding female recesses
are not exactly the same the
joint will either not go together

at all or it will be so loose as to
be nearly useless.

Another part of the answer lies
in just how difficult it is to cut
these perfectly matching fan
shapes when you do more
than one of each on each of the
two parts to the joint. Now the
requirement for precision is
amplified since even if the
male and female fan shapes
are exactly the same size and
same angle, if they are not also
exactly the same distance
apart, the joint simply will not
go together no matter how
hard you try.

Given the requirements for
perfection in cutting these
highly useful joints, there is
little wonder why the dovetail
joint is considered so difficult
to cut properly and also why
there have been so many
techniques, jigs and fixtures
offered by different
manufacturers to cut them.

Each requires the user to learn
a specific, different set of steps
and techniques. Often the
steps and techniques are far
from intuitive and can involve
a rather long or steep learning
curve.

Maybe that is why you can go
into most any woodworking
shop and you are likely to find
at least one and often two or
more dovetail jigs stacked in

the corner unused, gathering
dust. The owner tried to learn
the steps and techniques
outlined in the manuals that
accompanied the jig or fixture,
and may even have done so at
one time. But, the next time
they tried to use the jig they
got confused and felt like they
had to start all over again from
scratch. Frustrated, they
tossed the jig into the corner
and there it sits today.

In this manual I am going to
try to reverse this trend by
showing you how to use the
exceptionally well engineered
Festool VS-600 dovetail jig to
make perfect drawers, boxes
and cabinets every time with
little or no “relearning”
required.

8

Start with the desired
outcome in mind

Most manufacturers manuals,
including the Festool VS-600
manual, tell you a lot about
how to set up and adjust their
jig but do little to tell you how
to achieve the outcome you
want. Here we will start with
the outcome you want – a
perfect drawer, box or cabinet
– and show how to use the VS­600 to achieve that outcome
quickly and easily every time.

In fact, by the time you finish
with this manual, I hope you
will find the VS-600 is in use
every day in your shop or
studio just like it is in mine.
When it becomes the best,
fastest and easiest way to
achieve your perfect drawer,
box or cabinet it will be the
“go-to” tool of choice for this
purpose and, believe me, will
gather no dust in your shop.

Making a “perfect”
drawer in less than

five minutes

Let’s start with what
constitutes a “perfect” drawer,
box or cabinet. Since the side
joints on all three are the same,
to save my typing and your
reading, from this point
onward I will use the term

“drawer” to mean either a
drawer, a box, or a cabinet
carcass. A little later on I will
also cover what else you need
to do besides the dovetailed
side joints that differentiate
one from another. And, still
further on we will talk a bit
about using the VS-600 to also
make slotted or box joints as
well as dovetail joints.

A “perfect” drawer is one that
is exactly the length, width
and depth you want, is
absolutely square, sits flat and
invokes an image of fine
craftsmanship from the minute
you assemble it -

No sanding to fit, no “make it
a bit bigger and cut it to fit
afterwards” and no “put a bit
of filler into the gaps to make
it look like it fits” even when it

doesn’t. Just perfectly made in
the first place.

A “perfect” drawer is also one
you can make day-in and day­out with beautifully cut half
blind dovetail corners in less
than 5 minutes. Yes, that is
right, five minutes from the
time you have the properly
prepared stock in front of you
to the time you are ready to
assemble.

Stock preparation and the
precise engineering of the VS­600 base unit, template, guide
bushing and cutter are the
keys to your perfect box in five
minutes every time.

But, before we start we need to
understand how the system
works which we will do in the
next section.

9

How the VS-600
System Works

The VS-600 is designed around
a base unit

which will hold your properly
prepared stock in exactly the
right location while you make
your cuts, a set of heavy,
machined metal templates
which will guide your router
to make the cuts in exactly the
right places,

a guide bushing which you
will attach to your router to
exactly follow the contours of
each template, and a cutter
that is of the exact size and
angles for which the template
was designed.

The templates mount on the
base unit. The guide bushing
and router bit mount on the
router.

Every part of a VS-600 system

is shown in the picture below.
While it may look a bit
intimidating, the pieces all
relate to one another quite
simply and you don’t need to
buy them all at the same time.

One of the beauties of the
Festool VS-600 system is that
you only need to do your set
up one time. And, all that
amounts to is (a) setting the
template in or out to get the
edges of the finished cut
perfectly flush with one
another and (b) setting the
router bit depth to get the fit of
the joint exactly as tight as you
want it.

From that point on, you only
need to mount the bit in your
router, set the depth the same
as on your test piece, and cut
away so long as the
component parts are within
the range each template is
designed to handle.

See the sidebar on “One Time
Setup” on page 32.

I have found that in most cases
the factory settings for in/out
on the templates and the
factory bit depth
recommendations for each
template are right on and little
adjustment is required. One or
at most two test cuts is all you
need to make.

When you get the fit you
want, keep the test pieces as
your depth gauge for all the
subsequent uses of that
template/bit combination,
perfect drawer after perfect
drawer.

I strongly recommend the use
of Festool guide bushings and
cutters to be sure these match
the templates properly. I also
recommend the use of the
excellent Festool routers.

They are lighter in weight than
most other routers to give you
ease of control. They are far
more powerful than their
small size would suggest. I
have yet to bog one down no
matter what I was cutting.
And, they offer excellent
chip/dust collection so you
can concentrate on producing
your perfect drawer in five
minutes, rather than worrying
about trying to work around
the mess most other routers
and jigs produce.

10

Decoding the Festool

Catalog

Festool, like many tool
manufacturers who service a
world market, design their
tools around the metric
system. The numbers they use
are all in millimeters which I
will shorten in this manual to
“mm.” See “Using the Metric
System” on page 36.

As that note suggests, you
don’t have to think in the
metric system to gain all the
advantages of measuring in
the metric system.

But, to decode the Festool
catalog you will need to at
least understand that one inch
is a bit over 25 mm, and one
mm is a bit less than .040.”

Festool offers four different
combinations of templates,
guide bushings and cutters for
the VS-600 to allow you to cut
perfect half-blind and through
dovetails in stock of a range of
thicknesses.

In addition they also offer two
different templates, guide
bushings and cutters to allow
you to cut equally perfect box
joints in stock of different
widths, and even a doweling
jig to allow you to joint two
pieces of wood or man-made

materials with multiple
dowels if you wish.

The first time you look at their
catalog or web site, the section
on the “VS-600 jointing
system,” as they call it, will
appear to be a bit intimidating.
Let’s decode it.

The Base Unit

(item number 488-876) is the
base unit. You need one of
these no matter which/how
many templates you also buy.

The templates are all sold
separately. None come with
the base unit and the base unit
cannot be used to cut any joint
without at least one template.

The 600 refers to the maximum
width of work piece that you
can mount into the VS-600.
600mm is a bit less than 24” so
you can work on very large
drawers, boxes and cabinet
carcasses.

- The VS-600

Half-Blind Dovetail
Templates

half-blind dovetail templates.
They are given model
numbers beginning with the
letters SZ followed by a
number which refers to the
diameter of cutter expressed in
millimeters that template is
designed to use.

- There are two

11

Do NOT try to use any cutter
other than the one specified. If
you do, your joints simply will
not work. Each of these two
templates is designed to cut
perfect half-blind dovetail
joints into stock that is within a
specified range of thicknesses.
Do NOT try to use stock of a
thickness outside of these
ranges. If you do, your joints
simply will not work.

Template SZ-14 shown below
left is designed to cut half­blind dovetail joints in stock
from 15 to 20mm in thickness.

This is about 9/16” to a bit
over 3/4”. If you try to cut
half-blind dovetail joints in
stock outside this range, the
female recesses (sockets as
they are called) will either
bottom out too close to the
front or back of the drawer
leaving a thin, weak area, or
the male fan shaped tails will
be too short to be strong
enough.

You can cut half-blind dovetail
joints in stock where the front
and back components are
more than 20mm thick so long
as the sides are no more than
20mm. If you do, however,
most will think the joints

simply look shallow and out of
scale. So, stay within a stock
width of 15 to 20mm with this
template.

The proper guide bushing
(designed to fit only on Festool
routers) comes with each
template so you do not need to
buy these separately. Festool
calls guide bushings, “copy
rings”.

You can use other routers and
guide bushings so long as the
guide bushings have exactly
the same outside diameter as
their Festool counterparts.

You also need to buy the
cutters separately. Festool
calls their carbide tipped bits
HW while the high speed steel
bits are called HSS. I only use
the HW or carbide bits. I find
the Festool router bits to be
among the best I own and use
them every day. They are very
well machined, finely
polished, sharp right out of the
box, and have large carbides
which seem to stay sharp
longer than most bits. They
also are very well balanced
and centered so your cuts are
vibration free and “dead on”
accurate in both size and
angle.

The right cutter to use with
template SZ-14 is 490-992.
This has an overall diameter of

14.3mm with a cutting height

of 13.5mm set at a 15 degree
angle.

The shank diameter is 8mm
which I find ideal. It is much
stiffer than the ¼” shank bits
you might have used before,
yet small enough to produce a
pleasing dovetail size and
geometry. A ½” to 8mm collet
adapter is available from
Festool and others.

Template SZ-20 is designed to
cut half-blind dovetail joints in
stock from 21 to 28mm (26/32”
to 1 3/32”). The same caveats
on stock thickness apply. Use
cutter 490-996 which is 20mm
in overall diameter, has a
17mm long cutting height set
at 15 degrees.

All of the cutters, guide
bushings and alignment pins
used for all the Festool VS­600 dovetail joints are shown
above with their guide
bushing centering mandrels.

The two groups on the left are
for half blind dovetails and the
two on the right are for
through dovetails. We will
cover the templates for
through dovetails in that
section.

12

All the rest of the templates
and cutters are designed for
either box joints or dowel
joints. We will cover these
later in the manual.

For now, let’s concentrate
on building your perfect
drawer with half-blind
dovetail joints in under
five minutes.

These are the most commonly
used dovetail joints for
drawers and boxes and are
also quite useful for cabinet
carcasses.

Once you master half-blind
dovetails and consistently
produce a perfect drawer in
under five minutes, then you
can branch out to the other
types of joints as you wish.

Don’t make this

Just don’t make the mistake I see
first time users of dovetail jigs
make all the time. They pull their
new purchase out of the box, do a
cursory glance through the jig
manufacturers manual and start
butchering wood. They cut a few
poor half-blind dovetail joints,
then several really poor through
dovetail joints and maybe an ill­fitting box joint or two. When
they see the mayhem they have
created, they usually give up in
frustration. Stay with the half­blind dovetail joint until it
becomes almost automatic for
you. Then, and only then, branch
out to also learn to cut the other
types of joints.

mistake

13

A Perfect Drawer
Using Half-Blind

Dovetail Joints

Earlier I said stock
preparation, along with the
precise engineering of the
Festool VS-600 templates,
guide bushings and cutters
was the key to achieving the
desired outcome of creating a
perfect drawer with half blind
dovetails in under five
minutes.

I use primarily solid woods for
all my furniture so will spend
some time outlining how to
get properly prepped solid
wood components.

If you want to use man-made
materials, stick to a good
grade of multi-ply plywood
like Baltic Birch. That usually
comes in 5’ x 5’ sheets. The
plain old softwood plywood
sold in 4’ x 8’ sizes has too few
plys and too many interior
voids to make for anything
approaching a perfect drawer.

Hardwood plywood is usually
much better and can be used
with some success.

Don’t try to use chip board or
compressed board as they
generally are too weak to work
well.

MDF can be used but know
that the male fan shapes can be
quite fragile until the piece is
assembled and glued up.
Once assembled with a good
quality wood glue, MDF
makes for a strong drawer, box
or cabinet carcass. Without
glue the joints in MDF are
simply too weak to be useful.

Half blind dovetail joints cut in
solid wood are strong with or
without glue.

To prep solid wood you
almost must have a jointer
and a planer.

Seldom is the wood you buy
pre-surfaced really straight,
flat or of equal thickness over

its length. It may look that
way in the store but often will
have some cupping, twist,
warp or curve.

You can see it if you look at
the end of the board to see if it
is flat side to side or whether it
bows across its width
somewhere along the length.
That bow up or down is called
“cupping.” The board often
also will have some twist. This
is where the flat face of the
board is not parallel along its
entire length. Or, it may be
warped enough that
individual components are not
flat over their length.

The only way to effectively
take out cupping, twist or
warp is with a jointer. If you
run a warped, twisted or
cupped board through a
planer, the pinch rollers will
temporarily flatten the board
right under the planner knives.
The warp, cup or twist will
reappear again as it exits,
leaving you with a warped,
cupped or twisted board that
is simply thinner.

14

If you joint one face flat first,
you will take out the warp,
cup or twist. Now, when you
run it through the planer to get
it the thickness you want, it
will come out still flat.

Don’t worry too much if a
board is flat but not straight. It
is easy to cut the curve out of
one edge and then cut/plane
the other edge to be straight
and parallel to the first and of
the width you want as shown
in the before & after shots
below.

Cutting the drawer
components to the
proper size

Height - Centered
Dovetails Look Best

with the height
want.

All fixed template half blind
dovetail jigs, including the
Festool VS-600, are inherently
designed around drawers of a

height that is an even
increment of twice the finger
spacing.

In the case of the SZ-14
template, the distance between
each finger is exactly 22mm. If
your dovetails are properly
centered on the drawer side,
when you look at the finished
drawer from the side you will
see an 11mm half pin at both
the top and the bottom edges
and all the other dovetails will
be exactly 22mm apart.
Hence, the set of dovetails will
be centered over the height of
the drawer.

of drawer you

– Start

15