Charley wrote:

Yup. We buy what we think will do the best job for us, and it may not be
what someone else thinks will do best for him. Charlieb just seems to be
still trying to convince himself that he made the right choice, even after
spending the money for it. I think he made a good choice and it will serve
him well. He just needs get on with making sawdust and stop torturing
himself over whether he made a good decision or not.

I've had no second thoughts or "buyers remorse" about getting the
DOMINO. For most furniture applications it has more capabilities
than
I will probably never need - but I like to have options, even if I
never
use them. And sometimes having the option of doing something gets
me to do something I wouldn't have tried before - or even considered.
THAT's what I'm trying to convey. This thing is a solution looking
for
problems to solve.

Case in point:

I want to build something to hide the garbage can and recycling
containers I walk by several times a day going to and from the
shop. I COULD use redwood 4x4s with 2x4 stringers nailed
to them - and nail up some fence boards to the2x4s. And I could
make a gate with a 2x4 frame and nail up more fence boards.

BUT - nails are ugly - and they rust and streak the wood. Redwood
ages to a pleasant silver gray, It's pretty stuff.

SO - I'm gonna put it all together with loose tenons. The 2x4
stringers will go in 4" showing rather than the 2" - less flexing
and instead of nailing the fence boards I'll loose tenon them
between the stringers, leaving some slop in the mortises on the
ends of the fence board to allow for expansion/contraction since
it won't be protected from the elements. The gate will be done
the same way. The center board of each span will have one
tenon glued on each end to tie things together mid span.

This liitle project will involve joining 4x4s to 2x4s and 3/4" x 8"
x6'
fence boards to 2x4s - 64 loose tenons in two different sizes
and that's 128 mortises - also in two different sizes AND three
different offsets form a reference plane. Oh - and with two
two tenons per fence board end 52 end grain mortises in SIX
foot long boards (wouldn't even consider doing this without
the DOMINO)

Now THAT seems a bit nuts - it's a fence for heaven's sake.
It'll take days to layout all the mortises and cut them right?

WRONG!

Layout lines? I don't need no steenkin' layout out lines!

Set ups? I need just three - and I can do each set up in
maybe a minute - two max.

What about clamping and unclamping time? Don't need to.

I spent maybe an hour last night prototyping things - AND
writing down the settings for what I was doing. Now I've
got the settings that do what I want to do - and have them
written down on a sketch of the project. If it takes much over
an hour and a half to cut ALL of the mortises I'll be surprised.

I don't know if you were around when the HP came out with
the firts progammable pocket calculator - but it was described
as A Solution Looking For Problems To Solve. I paid over $400
for one shortly after they came out - and THAT's in '70s dollars.
Never regretted that purchase. That little sucker saved me
a hellacious amount of mind numbing grunt work.

And the first time I saw an Apple Mac computer - that you could
draw with - albeit like trying to draw with a pencil stuck in a
potato - I bought me one - again the chunk of change it took
was worth it because it allowed me to do things I was doing
with pencil, paper and a calculator so much faster and easier.
Being able to do artwork and drawings on it was a bonus I'm
still enjoying - three versions of the Mac later - and now I
can make the damned thing do things I wouldn't have even
thought of without it.

The DOMINO is a lever - allowing me to do things I couldn't
or wouldn't without it. Is it THE Silver Bullet - that will
do every conceivable type of mortise and tenon joint?
No - but for furniture work - and even crazy fence projects?
YUP.

That's why there are so
many different tools on the market that do the same or similar jobs, and
those companies all seem to be making money. To each his own I guess.

And ain't it nice to have all those options!

I spent several years dreaming about a MultiRouter but could never quite
justify the cost. I've watched several live demos of it and it would sure
make M&T production easy, although, in my opinion, it isn't quite as precise
as what I was looking for. The FMT is great for repeatable very close
tolerance joints and a little slower when it comes to setup and production
runs.

How precise do you need to be? It is wood we're playing with right?
And it is following a template so the mortise sizes are limited to
the templates available right. And router bits have a depth of cut
limit right?

So you have to adapt to the tools "presets" - mortise length, width
and the bit's depth of cut. What you can control is WHERE the
mortise is cut. And THAT is what you don't get "out of the box"
with the DOMINO. The retractable "stop pins" are preset to center
the mortise 37mm from the mortise side of the pin - referencing
off either pin (left/right). Once you have a mortise cut in a part
you can use either end of that mortise to reference the next
mortise. You CAN align the tool to a layout line - but that's a
hassle and takes time. You can make a bench hook with changeable
spacers to do the first mortise any distance you want from an
edge or end - and I have done just that - using the DOMINO to
provide the interchangeability.

It's a modified version of Form Follows Function - Joinery Selection
Follows The Available Tools To Make Them With.

Although I have only seen video demonstrations of the Domino, I think
it may be faster than the FMT and the MultiRouter, but we've already made
our choices, haven't we.

Don't "think" it's faster - it absolutely is faster. Think biscuit
joiner
speed. We're not talkin' twice as fast - but rather 6 to better than
10 times faster - with repeatable accuracy. Think in terms of what
the hand held router did for woodworking. OK so the router can do
a lot more and different types of things - but the DOMINO concept
is in that league - a completely different way of doing things.

Do you really need M&T joints that are bigger than 1/2 x 5" ? (the limit for
FMT)

Are you putting a router bit in a plunge router that is long enough
to cut a mortise 1/2" wide and 5 inches deep - and spin it at a
minimum of 10,000 rpms? I'm guessing you mean a bit that'll
cut 2 1/2" deep and you cut from both sides of the part.

What do you make that requires larger joints than this?

Though not 5" deep, I have done a door that required pairs of
1" thick by 2 1/2" deep mortises.

I've found
that I get serious cross grain gluing problems when I try make larger M&T
joints.

Which is why, at some some point you split up the single tenon
into narrower multiple tenons.

Most of what I make is furniture related and the FMT does all that
I've needed to do so far (but I didn't throw out my old wooden morticing jig
yet-just in case). I've also used my FMT for some production runs of
plantation and exterior shutters, where it performed really well.

AH - another problem the DOMINO can solve. WHAT IF - you could
cut the mortises as quickly as cutting a biscuit slot? You see, the
DOMINO mortise length is a function of one of three "presets" PLUS
the diameter of the bit being used.

Let's say your slats - or whatever they're called - are 6mm thick for
this example. The mortise width DOMINO "presets" would quickly cut
19mm (0.748") OR 25mm (0.984") or 29mm (1.142") mortises
at any of the following depths - 12, 15, 20, 25 and 28mm - you'll
have to do the math - 25.4mm/inch). Mill your "slats" to whatever
"snuggness you want - and skip tenoning them completely. Want
to angle them - shim one side of the DOMINO's "foot". Want them
to overlap? Change where the DOMINO will cut the mortise by
adjusting
the fence to mortise center line distance - using either the "presets
8mm, 10mm, 11mm, 12.5mm, 14mm or 20mm OR anywhere between
8 and 30mm if you're good at setting an arrow to a scale with lines
at 1mm increments.

This thing changes how you think about doing mortises. You don't
"Need" ANY layout lines - the reference face and reference end of
the part are what this thing is working from - AND - because the
retractable "stop pins" are symetric - 37mm to the mortise's
centerline - no matter how thick or how wide the mortise is -
you can work off EITHER end of the part to be mortised. If the
parts have the same length width and thickness you get the
mortise where it's supposed to go - on both ends if you're doing
end grain - like on a table apron.

I know this is getting a bit Evangelical - but I just don't seem to
be able to convey what this thing can do - or how easy it makes
it to do it. One Ofs or small productions pieces - this thing is
revolutionary - and - it's a single, handheld power tool - with a
slick case - that stacks on, and can be locked to, any other
Festool case - which they call a Systainer. Their loose tenons
- well at the moment their more expensive than biscuits - but
if money gets short I'll make my own version - I've got a router
table, planer and table saw.

I have only had to cut tenons on the ends of a couple of excessively long
pieces with the FMT. For these few long pieces I needed to put tenons on
their ends, and I solved the problem by mounting the FMT to a deck railing,
letting the board hang off the edge of the deck, and I stood on the deck
behind the FMT while making the cuts. It worked out quite well.

If I tried that I'd drop a board, trip on the stairs on the way down
to
get it, fall on the damned dog who'd bite me, throw out my back while
bending over and twisting to lift the board - AND get hit on the head
when the FMT jig fell off the deck rail - with a little assistance of
a
****ed off dog. But hey - sometimes - not often - things go "just
so". Did I mention that the folks in the Emergency Room know me
well enough to know my dog's name - and I don't get a bill mailed
to me. They just "put it on my tab" and will get their money the
next time I "stop by" - usually sooner than their "60 days overdue"
letters go out.

(I'm not really a klutz - but I like spinning a tale that might cause
a grin or two.)

The pity of it all is that the guys doing the demonstrations for
the DOMINO haven't really used the thing for a project. "See
it cuts a mortise just like this! Quick and easy. Now how many
would you like?" It looks like a biscuit joiner and that's the
impression they give the onlooker.

I'm doing a demonstration of the DOMINO for a woodworking
group this evening. I've got some handouts and some examples
of some of the things this thing will do. I'll cut some mortises
and have somebody from the group do a table with apron just
so they get an idea of the speed this thing does what it does.
But what I really hope to do is give them a good idea of what
does what and how all that can be applied.

Fun this woodworking thing.

charlie b