Porter Cable 43777PC 9/32-Inch 7 Degree High Speed Steel Dovetail Router Bit

Very good bit compared to the carbide tipped (not solid carbide). the carbide tipped i used broke and this one even though HSS, is still holding up good.

as a retired woodworking teacher I have always thought Portercable was one of the best portable tools likewise I am have the same feeling about their bits blades etc.

I ordered several of these for box-making project and am glad I did so. The dovetail bits are HSS (high speed steel) and therefore get dull more quickly than carbide-tipped ones. Amazon should correct its advertising. The Porter-Cable packaging, however, is accurately identified as HSS.

Just what I needed

medium quality but does the job

worked grate

I originally had one of these come with my Porter-Cable dovetail jig set (4216, including the mini dovetail template). I decided to use the mini dovetail jig and bit to make some rabbetted half-blind dovetails to attach drawer fronts for a chest of drawers I was building. There were 6 drawers to do with 2 dovetail joints each, about 6' of linear joint length. The one that came with the kit was not carbide-tipped, just as these aren't. They're all high-speed steel. What this means is that I got through 3 joints before the tearout was out of hand. It was so dull that it was rubbing the wood away instead of cutting it, causing lots of smoke and charring of my wood. I thought to myself, "Porter Cable is a good brand, maybe I just got a dud bit. It happens. I'll order 2 more just in case, so that even if they're both as bad as this one I can still finish the project."They arrived two days later. I chucked one in my router, readjusted my depth, and I was back in business. Until the bit slipped. The shaft on the replacement wasn't perfectly round, and it had eventually vibrated loose in the collet. I retightened it more than was reasonable, readjusted the depth, and continued on. Sure enough, on the third joint, it was back to sluggish cutting and charring, and despite my efforts to take it easier on this one than I had the first one, this one broke.But I take it in stride. It's the weekend, I have another bit, I get to be in the workshop and there's a cool beer waiting for me after I finish these drawer joints. So I take out the empty shaft that remained in the collet and I insert the new one (also not perfectly round), once again tightening it more than I've tightened any router bit before. I readjust the depth and run a test joint, which turns out ok. No bit slippage and it's back to cutting like a hot knife through butter. I set up the next joint (number 7 of 12 for those keeping track) and I start to route. The bit drops a quarter of an inch half way through, just as I was pushing in, where it dug a nice chunk into the metal of the jig before breaking off.The part that frustrates me the most is that I still have to finish my project, so I'm back on amazon ordering more. No one else makes a bit this size that I can order instead.These things are a waste of money and dangerous. All the carbide-tipped bits that came with the jig kit originally are fantastic. I don't know why these are HSS instead, or why the quality of these is so poor, but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone who likes their fingers. Stick with the full-sized dovetail bits instead.

tools, time to replace some