"Tom H" wrote in message
...
I'm new to dovetail jointery. I'm making blind dovetails for drawer.

The dovetails were fine, the trouble was getting consistant cuts where the
front and sides were exactly flush at the top and bottom. The side would
be slightly higher than the front or vice versa. Also some chip-out on
the last dovetail.

My solution is to make my drawer blanks over sized, then cut the
dovetails, then cut the front and sides even and down to the correct size.

Am I cheating or is this a common practice?

Learning to hide mistakes becomes an art. As for you sides not aligning
with the fronts or backs. Center your guide bushing to the router bit. If
the guide bushing is not centered it will cause the problem you describe.
And or if you are cutting the two pieces at the same time on the jog insure
that the stops that position the offsets on the boards are correctly
positioned.
To help prevent chip out back cut into the DT across the openings first.