Center of 8mm bit

[Ifixbax]

After much learning I am finally to center my mortise to my board thickness. I have the 700 xl. I measured the distance from bottom plate to middle of bit shift and it is 14.18 mm, not 10mm as I have seen stated. I simply add that amount, no problem.

For $1,500+ I honestly expect 10 f'ing mm. I am worried that there may be a problem with the tool. How do I find out? I checked and found no post about this.

 

[Birdhunter]

My 700 eyeballs out to 15mm. I think my 500 is 10mm.

 

[Paul_HKI]

After much learning I am finally to center my mortise to my board thickness. I have the 700 xl. I measured the distance from bottom plate to middle of bit shift and it is 14.18 mm, not 10mm as I have seen stated. I simply add that amount, no problem.

For $1,500+ I honestly expect 10 f'ing mm. I am worried that there may be a problem with the tool. How do I find out? I checked and found no post about this.

I've seen it stated that the earth is flat.  That too is false, or course.  Don't believe everything you read on the internet... 

It's nowhere near 10mm to the centreline from the bottom of the baseplate on the 700.  If that was the case, considering the 14mm cutter needs 7mm for half the diameter, plus clearance, the base plate would be no more than a millimetre thick.  Which would be really crappy design.  15mm sounds about right to me.  10mm makes no sense if you're looking at the XL / DF700.

It's also a waste of time to try to set the depth stop to hit the centreline of your workpiece, if you're using the right technique and cutter/domino size for the task at hand.  It's not designed to be used that way, and you'll only frustrate yourself and blame the tool if you don't know how to use it properly.  You'll be able to learn how to use the tool very effectively if you begin by spending time working through the supplemental manual, an excellent resource provided by Festool USA here:

https://www.festoolusa.com/-/media/tts/fcp/festool-usa/downloads/manuals/domino_xl_df700_supplemental.pdf

 

[ultane]

You'll be able to learn how to use the tool very effectively if you begin by spending time working through the supplemental manual, an excellent resource provided by Festool USA here:

https://www.festoolusa.com/-/media/tts/fcp/festool-usa/downloads/manuals/domino_xl_df700_supplemental.pdf

Thanks Paul!

 

[Cheese]

The DF 500 is 10 mm, the DF 700 is 15 mm.
But that's the least of your concerns.  [smile]

I would vehemently advise against trying to align the Dominos in the center of the board. There's absolutely no reason for it and in most situations it will hurt you.

How close do you think you can get to aligning the centerlines in both of the pieces. So if you can align it to within .003", the thickness of a hair, if you flip the board accidentally you're now out by .006". You can feel that with a fingernail and more sanding will be required to even up the board surfaces. Basically it's a recipe for disaster, I prefer to offset the centerlines by .030" (1/32") so that way I can see that the boards need to be flipped if I did something wrong and they aren't on the same plane.

 

[Birdhunter]

Another thought, except in a very few instances, using the base instead of the adjustable fence is not a good idea. Using pencil marks on both show surfaces to locate mortises and using a narrow setting on one board and a wide setting on the other board makes assembly a lot easier. Locating the mortises somewhere close to the middle board is smart, but it is not necessary to absolutely center it (as long as you use the same reference surfaces).

You will find advocates for using only narrow on both sides (extreme precision required) and for using one set of narrow mortises and the rest wide. It's your machine and your wood. Develop a process that works for you.

Halfinchshy and New Brit both have excellent Youtube videos of adjusting and using the Domino. I found watching the videos and practicing on scrap shortened my learning curve.

The Supplemental manuals for the 500 and 700 are light years better than the factory manual.

Bottom line. It's better to make a mistake on a piece of scrap than on an expensive piece of wood.

 

[ChuckM]

The Domino Joiner is designed to be used with the fence as the registration means. The center point of a cutter to the baseplate(10mm for the DF500) is useful info for positioning machine when using the intersecting lines technique to mill mortises.

 

[rmhinden]

On my DF700, it is 10mm from the lowest position of the fence to the center of the cutter.

Bob

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[Birdhunter]

Same on mine for fence to centerline. Base to centerline is just about, but not quite 15mm. I could not find an official spec for that distance.