I have only used Porte Cable brand biscuits. I have found that the quality
control on the biscuits is not perfect. About 1 out of 20 will fit sloppy in
the slot, or won't go in at all. When this happens, I toss it and grab
another. As another poster stated, it could be that your cutter is
oversized, or burred, but I find this hard to believe. Have you trid cutting
multiple slots? Do they all do it?


Joe in Denver
my woodworking website:
http://www.the-wildings.com/shop/

"Jim Bailey" wrote in message
...
I need somone to set my expectations biscuit joinery.

I just got my dandy new PC557 (and 1000 free biscuits) last night and was
anxious to fire it up today. After giving the directions a good thorough
going over, I grabbed some 3/4" x about 15 or 16" and was gong to biscuit
join their edges - 2 #20's about 12" apart. The tool is really smooth -
no
jerking or moving but still, you want to hold eveything flat and stable,
or
I can see where it could try to move around a bit.

Well, dry biscuits in the slots have about a 32nd clearance, which of
course
translates to the same vertical movement when the joint is together. I'd
hoped for a much more snug fit than that. You can also slide the 2 joined
edges laterally about an inch either way - but that's not a problem -
you're
lining up on your original biscuit marks anyway - but the vertical
movement
bugs me a bit.

After reading all the stuff here about how those biscuits swell, I thought
maybe with gluing them up, the swelling would stabilize the joint a bit.
No
such luck - I even got aggravated and soaked a biscuit in a glass of water
for about 15 minutes - still loose in the slot. I just went back out to
the
shop (about two hours later) and you can still slide the biscuit in and
out
without problem.

Have I set my expectations too high about how snug the joint would be with
this method ?

jim