Perfect Finger Joints
Are Also Easy and
Fast
A finger joint is simply a series
of male fingers and female
recesses of the same size and
spacing cut all the way across
the ends of the work piece. By
cutting these so the male
fingers on one piece fit into the
female recesses on the other a
strong corner joint with a
relatively large gluing area can
be established quite quickly.
Some, including Festool, also
call this a “box” joint because
it is very easy to automate for
rapid assembly of functional
boxes.
On the VS-600, finger or box
joints of two sizes can be
quickly cut in work pieces
from 6mm to 28mm in
thickness and up to 600mm
wide. The joint will look the
same from either side. If you
like the look of finger joints,
they can be cut very quickly
and accurately every time.
Two corners can be cut with
each set up (so long as the
pieces are less than 300mm
wide) and only one template,
one guide bushing and one
cutter are required for all the
cuts.
The only set-up required is
setting the depth of cut made
by the straight router bit to be
equal to the thickness of the
work pieces.
Prep your stock just as you did
for the dovetail joints. You
want stock that is uniform in
thickness, flat, square, of the
size you want and within the
thickness range of the template
you are using.
Centering the Fingers - As
with dovetail joints, the best
looking finger joints are when
the fingers are centered over
the height of the box. You will
have one half finger at the top
of the box and one half finger
at the bottom of the box.
Avoid boxes with less than or
more than half a finger at the
bottom as these tend to be
quite weak as well as
awkward looking.
The proper height of the box to
have centered fingers is any
even increment of twice the
template spacing.
Festool sells two different
finger joint templates, FZ-6
and FZ-10. The numbers refer
to both the size in mm of the
straight router bit used to
make the cuts and also to the
side spacing. The template
spacing is twice the diameter
of the router bit so calculating
the height of a box with
centered fingers is quite easy.
It is any even increment of
twice the template spacing, ie:
12, 24, 36, etc. for the FZ-6 and
20, 40, 60, etc. for FZ-10.
Width and Length – With
finger joints the fingers go all
the way through each piece so
simply cut the front, back, and
side work pieces to exactly the
lengths you want for your
finished box.
Set up is similar to what you
did for through dovetails.
Mount scrap pieces under the
top clamp bar that are at least
5mm THICKER than your
work pieces to allow the router
bit to pass above the bed of the
VS-600 when you make your
cuts.
All four work pieces will be
mounted vertically under the
front clamp bar. Two work
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