I'll agree as one of the items often not quoted with the test results is the
type of stress that's applied. With dowels, the weakest direction is when
they're pulled directly out of the joint, as opposed to breaking. OTOH, moving
from smooth dowels to ridged dowels to ringed dowels makes a big difference,
yet most tests only say "dowels" and no more.
GerryG

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:02:27 GMT, "HMFIC-1369" wrote:

I think over all you would have to first examine the strength of the glues
and then examine the stress of the project. I would use dowels in the
construction of a heavy worktop and biscuits for a more gentle type table. I
don't think the dowel's would break as quickly as the biscuits but that
would also be dependent on dowel diameter vs. biscuit thickness, one could
possibly place 3 dowels in the same cross area as a biscuit.

as for the tools? I use the more then I can afford method.



"wesf66" wrote in message
...

I use a dowelmax doweling jig, and it works great. It can, however, be
quite time consuming. Are biscuits close to the same strength? They
look like they would be a lot faster, but I thought I'd ask a few
questions before paying a few hundred for a new tool. Are there
significant differances between buscuit jointers? Are there certain
features that I should look for?


--
wesf66