I finally broke down and purchased a Domino, the smaller DF500
version. It should be here tomorrow. It'll mostly be used for M&T
joinery in cabinets and case type furniture. I'm not into chair
building as I don't have the "eye" for it.

I plan to play with it a bit before doing any serious work but thought
that some of you Domino afficianados might have some hard-learned
lessons from which I could benefit.

Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated.

Regards.

Tom

Tom wrote in
:

I finally broke down and purchased a Domino, the smaller DF500
version. It should be here tomorrow. It'll mostly be used for M&T
joinery in cabinets and case type furniture. I'm not into chair
building as I don't have the "eye" for it.

I plan to play with it a bit before doing any serious work but thought
that some of you Domino afficianados might have some hard-learned
lessons from which I could benefit.

Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated.

Regards.

Tom

There are many, many videos on Youtube. Look at them, especially the
festool-sponsored ones. I look at the Domino as a souped-up and
sophisticated system to make biscuit-style and dowel-style joints. So
alignment is crucial. In my experience the dominoes are just a hair
oversized when used as is in the "tight" setting. Just sanding the flat
areas and the side edges a tiny bit makes them fit better/easier.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On Wednesday, August 1, 2012 8:20:43 AM UTC-7, Tom wrote:
I finally broke down and purchased a Domino, the smaller DF500 version. It should be here tomorrow. It'll mostly be used for M&T joinery in cabinets and case type furniture. I'm not into chair building as I don't have the "eye" for it. I plan to play with it a bit before doing any serious work but thought that some of you Domino afficianados might have some hard-learned lessons from which I could benefit. Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated. Regards. Tom

I usually play with it a bit before getting down to serious work. I cannot however pass on any "hard" learned lessons... oh wait, you are talking about a wood working tool. I thought you were talking about working your wood. Sorry, wrong tool.

On 8/1/2012 10:20 AM, Tom wrote:
I finally broke down and purchased a Domino, the smaller DF500
version. It should be here tomorrow. It'll mostly be used for M&T
joinery in cabinets and case type furniture. I'm not into chair
building as I don't have the "eye" for it.

I plan to play with it a bit before doing any serious work but thought
that some of you Domino afficianados might have some hard-learned
lessons from which I could benefit.

Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated.

Regards.

Tom



1. DO NOT reference cutting height from the bench top. Stated another
way always use the fence to reference your cut and be sure the Domino
base does not accidentally come in contact with the bench surface.
This should be the practice when cutting biscuits slots with a plate
joiner also.

2. Using the indexing pins to accurately index is almost too much
trouble and difficult to calibrate perfectly for mating edges.
Basically the left bin has to be in perfect registration with the right
pin in relation to the cutter cutting width. I normally cut a wider
slot/mortise and that allows me a bit of wiggle room. This has never
been an issue once I adopted this method. YMMV and I suggest you try
before taking my word for it. You may be perfectly happy with the results.

3. The assortment Domino kit is a pretty good deal that includes
cutters for all the included set of domino's.

4. Be sure to use/attach some form of vac to clear out the mortises.

Most all of the above suggestions are not unique to this tool as they
are a good suggestion for plate joiner also. If you are familiar with a
plate joiner/biscuit cutter you will have this tool down in a snap.
There are really no surprises.

On Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:20:43 -0500, Tom
Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated.

The first and best suggestion I can give you is to join the Festool
Owners Group.

On Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:20:43 -0500, Tom
Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated.

The second suggestion I can offer is to have a set of Dominos that are
slightly sanded for dry fitting purposes. You'll find that dry fitting
with regular unsanded Dominos will give you a great deal of trouble
getting pieces apart.

.... Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated.

When I join a end grain to side grain (like a door frame, for
instance), I cut the mortise just to fit the domino, and I cut the
side grain mortise a bit wider in case I need to adjust the alignment.

Thanks to those who provided their thoughts, especially our apparently
randy colleague at Sonoma products.

Tried it out Monday putting together some frames for shed doors. Just
joining some twobys, not jointed, planed or otherwise squared.

Observations:

1. Amazingly clean. If I had routed those mortises I would have
shovelled up a bunch of chips even with the vac hooked up to the
router. With the Domino, almost no residue escaped.

2. Fast. 80 mortises took about 30 minutes after the locations were
marked out.

3. Fairly accurate. I only had to open out 4 mortises to get a dry
fit, on all others the sanded tenons slipped right in. This despite
timber that was NOT "4 square".

A thought:

At the bottoms of the door frames I was joining 2X4 stlies to a 2X6
rail. I used 3 10mm dominos on each side spaced across the 5 1/2
inches. Afterwards I realised that I could have cut overlapping Domino
mortises to create a 3 or 3 1/2 single hole, then cut a tenon from
pine to fit. More gluing surface, fewer interior shoulders, maybe
stronger in sheer due to solid long grain material in tenon. Hmm.
Probably overkill for this application.

Anyway, thanks.

Tom

On Wednesday, August 8, 2012 10:09:11 AM UTC-5, Tom wrote:
A thought:

At the bottoms of the door frames I was joining 2X4 stlies to a 2X6
rail. I used 3 10mm dominos on each side spaced across the 5 1/2
inches. Afterwards I realised that I could have cut overlapping Domino
mortises to create a 3 or 3 1/2 single hole, then cut a tenon from
pine to fit. More gluing surface, fewer interior shoulders, maybe
stronger in sheer due to solid long grain material in tenon. Hmm.
Probably overkill for this application.

The Domino has three mortise widths. Most use these to allow wiggle room when aligning rails and stiles for instance. But you can custom make Dominoes, slip tenons, for the wider slots. Just plane and rip some wood to the right size. Maybe also run them through a router table to round the corners. Use these custom wider slip tenons instead of the stock Dominoes. Also allows you to make slip tenons in the same wood you are joining. Dominoes are beech I think. If you are joining oak, walnut, maple, why not make your slip tenons out of oak, walnut, maple. Better than mixing wood types when gluing.