Fast Domino Dowel Router Jig, No Marking Required!

This loose tenon jig (for domino dowels) is designed for common 18mm material and optimized for speed. When you join two boards together to form the edge (e.g. of a case for a cupboard) you always clamp the larger side (blue in the pictures, with the wings) to the face of a boards. On one board, you cut a slot for a dowel into the face. The slot is a bit wider than the other ("loose"), so you get a bit of wiggle room  for the dowel. On the other board, you cut a slot into the edge. That slot is a bit narrower ("snug"), so the dowel fits snugly. Overall, you get about 2mm of wiggle room, which is great for the glue up!

For most of the things I build, using two dowel per joint is enough. Using this jig, you don't even have to mark the distance from the side: just flip out the print-in-place registration pins and slide them against the side of the board to get an accurate and repeatable position. After printing, apply some gentle force to break the pins free, for example by using a small flat-head screwdriver. This almost always needed for print in place hinges. Flip the pins in and out a few times so that it's easy to operate them and they stay in place. On the third plate is a test block with just a single flip-out pin so you can test it with your printer.

Using the jig with thicker material also works, the center of the dowel slot is always 9mm from the reference edge, but that does not matter for the domino as long as you have the same reference edge for both boards you'd like to join. The jig is also easy to align to a marking line, there are cutouts and lines you can use to orient it.

This is the second domino dowel jig I've designed. The first one was more flexible (you can set the domino slot distance from the edge, see https://makerworld.com/en/models/2354502-flexible-domino-dowel-jig-for-router), but I discovered that I don't really need that. For furniture construction, setting up the jig was way too complicated. I almost always work with 18mm or 20mm material, so I don't really need the flexibility.

The jig is meant for a hand-held router (I'm using a Makita RT0700) with a plunge base and a 16mm (outer diameter) guide bushing. Depending on which side is used, the slots are either snug fit or loose.

Important: In order to use this jig you will need:

• A router with a 16mm (outer diameter) router bushing and a plunge base
• A 6mm or 8mm spiral upcut bit (two flutes) works best, e.g. https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0DK6R9XCJ or https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BKZNXG9N work great

The guide bushing was part of the standard set that came with the Makita and it's a common size. Since the model is parametric I can easily upload it for other size. Just let me know!

Changes

• 2026-04-18 v23: Redesigned the holes around the flip-out print-in-place pins, it's now much easier to flip them out:

  

Hardware

In terms of hardware you just need two bolts and screws to connect the two sides:

• 2x machine screws with countersunk head (M4, 22mm to 25mm)
• 2x hex nut (M4)

First, put one of the nuts into the slot, holding the part upright:

Use the screw to grab the nut:

Then pull the nut into the recession:

Peter Millard introduced an similar jig (for a different guide bushing), you can find a video here: