Which looks similar to the Cantek.

I use a two flute solid carbide from Cantek. I pitch them when dull.

The fitment adjustment with the concentric spindle is about the dumbest thing possible. A two flute doesn't really do much because of that. You want to set the tool by ear. Meaning clock it in the spindle until it sounds like it it's cutting as quietly as possible.
Then adjust the height of the spindle assembly for fit.

Once you do that, from there on out, you can fine tune the fit with a tiny rotation of the tool in that concentric spindle.

It's a fidgety and weird way to do it, but it does work.

I'm looking at getting a cnc dovetailer. The one I'm looking at is $70k though. We've made a lot of drawers with the cantek, but it's poorly made, doesn't deliver the best results, and I think there's a better way

At one time I was getting a Omec A23 750 bit from a place called Akhurst. Doesn't look like they sell it anymore and another place I notice does but the price has gone insane. They want $136 for the bit. I was getting them for $70. It's a good bit but not for that price. I was getting the Grizzly bits for $35 and now they want $46. $38 if you buy 3 at a time which I would suggest doing. It's a good bit.

When it starts to dull I get out my superfine diamond sharpener and tune it up. I do it right on the machine so I don't have to change anything. Works well and you get a lot of extra mileage out of a bit.

I think my Grizzly works pretty well for doing dovetails. I didn't set it up like they wanted. I set it up like I've seen others do with the stops being the reference for the bottom. I learned that if I make my drawer sides with a .365" reading after the whole inch the parts are reversible and you can put the slot on either side and things still line up.

Mine has an essentric spindle so you spin the bit in it and it'll change the size of the slot it makes so you can fine tune the fit of the dovetails. Using a magnifying glass and the previous reading I can get it on the first try sometimes. It is fidgety but you only do it once every 3000 pins made with Baltic Birch. Probably a lot more with Hard Maple.

What makes your Cantek sub par Karl?

"What makes your Cantek sub par Karl?"

-The spindle runs really warm. I don't think the bearing setup is the best it could be. I've replaced the assembly once already. I've got the old one and I've been meaning to take it to a machinist and have him take it apart, and put a higher grade bearing in to see if that resolves that issue. An electro spindle will run cooler, handle the high rpm better, and do so with less run out.

-I think there needs to be some speed control on the plunge part of the cut. I think it's too fast.

-A cnc dovetailer can run a climb cut to limit tear out.

-You have only one option for pin spacing. A cnc that can be altered, and some other things can be done as well, like doubling up pins to make them wider.

-We oversize all of the parts, then trim off the top after machining to remove that tear out, which is unavoidable with the Cantek. I think this step can be removed with a cnc but I don't know if it will 100% remove it. Wood just doesn't like to be cut in certain ways.

-Dust collection required modification to get it to mediocre. It's still not great with a 4" port, and extra guarding/deflection added. Better than as it came, but still not great.

-For operator comfort, and dust collection, the spindle should be horizontal, not vertical. Most of your drawers sides are going to be around 21" deep or less. They go in vertically. Most of the time it's fine, but when you have a really wide drawer, say 30 or 40 inches wide, the front of the machine is blocked off by those long parts hanging out in front of the machine. If they were vertical, that would negate that issue. You'd also have a fairly consistent distance the parts would be hanging out the front, which should make it easier for the operator.

-The stops are horrifically bad. I made replacements from MDF on the cnc. The plastic ones that come with will deform from tightening them down, even when being careful. Adding a plate to spread out the load of the bolt might help that? They also change dimension with temperature. There's no way to really fine tune the position of them. I ended up making a setup board for the sides and the fronts/backs where you set both stops at the same time on that face of the table, referencing off of the other face with a mark put in by the cnc to line up or index the two setup boards to one another. This is when I learned that the pins and tails are not 1" on center, but 25mm. It's close, but that .4mm was causing a weird cumulative error, that I never could figure out until I learned the centers are what they are.

The machine works, it sucks to get dialed in. It's just not the best solution for me anymore. It's way better than cutting them with a router and a jig, I've made thousands of drawers with a router and a jig. (I wore out multiple routers, and even a template) The Cantek is waaaaay better than doing it that way.

I'm looking at the single spindle dovetailer from Mereen Johnson. I think that's the right solution for my shop. But it's a big chunk of capital considering the small improvement I'll get out of that investment. We're probably making about 150 drawers a month right now. Sometimes less, sometimes more. I sell them to a couple of other shops around here, I wouldn't mind chasing more of that work down. It's easy money and mistakes are pretty cheap when they happen.

Here's a link to a video I made of how I setup the machine.

https://youtu.be/tbtoZ5eBJxc