Domino on imperial thicknesses

[waterloomarc]

How do my fellow North Americans handle this? Sure I could mill my lumber to metric dimensions but that's not even an option for sheet stock. What are you all doing to center the domino on the thickness of the stock? I keep trying to approximate it and i never get it right. So I try to compensate by always referencing the same surfaces but that gets confusing with multiple parts (perhaps I'm just an idiot) and something always winds up out of alignment. Most times I can fudge it, but other times it's quite time consuming to replace the piece.

So either i'm doing something wrong or I'm missing an easy way to center the dominos. Do you have any suggestions? Now that Festool is furnishing stuff here in imperial is there a conversion kit available that doesn't cost a fortune?

 

[Corwin]

How do my fellow North Americans handle this? Sure I could mill my lumber to metric dimensions but that's not even an option for sheet stock. What are you all doing to center the domino on the thickness of the stock? I keep trying to approximate it and i never get it right. So I try to compensate by always referencing the same surfaces but that gets confusing with multiple parts (perhaps I'm just an idiot) and something always winds up out of alignment. Most times I can fudge it, but other times it's quite time consuming to replace the piece.

So either i'm doing something wrong or I'm missing an easy way to center the dominos. Do you have any suggestions? Now that Festool is furnishing stuff here in imperial is there a conversion kit available that doesn't cost a fortune?

Referencing off the same surface is the way to go.

Seneca Woodworking offers replacement parts to convert to Imperial.

 

[waterloomarc]

The problem I have is I confuse myself when trying to figure out which surface I need to reference. Tonight I buggered up the sides of a case because I referenced the wrong surface despite talking myself through it to begin with. Of course in hindsight it was a blazingly stupid mistake - obviously i referenced of the end of the bottom & top panels so I need to reference off the outside of the sides; but nope somehow I convinced myself it made perfect sense to reference off the inside! Had I at least done a dry fit before drilling the shelf holes I could've just swapped them...but that's not how I roll!

Thanks for the Seneca link. They seem to have aligned themselves well to Festool. $55 for a 2" piece of plastic, how Festoolian. Ordered one anyway though!

 

[Peter_C]

FWIW Sheet stock in the USA IS metric. IE: 3/4" plywood is actually 23/32", which is 18mm.

 

[antss]

Witness marks are you friend whether you're working in SAE, Metric, or just plain ol eyeballin it.

 

[flair woodworks]

I place mortise close enough to the center that there is adequate wall strength. I  would never want the  mortise to be absolutely centred, as that would be bad - allowing they possibility of accidentally assembling a part backwards. Everything is laid out in the orientation I want, taking into account grain direction, etc., then mortise locations are marked on the reference face. Mortise, assemble, then clean up and remove reference marks.

 

[sancho57]

What Chris said,

IMO it doesnt have to be exact, as Corwin said register off the same surface, I mark my faces so it helps with assy.

not that big of a deal

 

[Vartz04]

Use the dowel max check mark method

 

[Gwerner]

As others have said, using witness marks to reference the faces is the only way to go. Getting the mortise perfectly centered is a struggle in futility and really not necessary.

 

[JCLP]

As Peter stated. All sheet goods in North America are produced in metric sizes on metric machines made in Europe. The size published in stores are nominal sizes and not actual. You should have no problem finding the center if you work in metric as the sheet good is metric. with that said, I never find the exact center. I eyeball it and always use the referenced face method.

 

[ben_r_]

Yea I thought about picking up one of those Seneca Imperial adapters, but then when I really thought about it I came to the conclusion that there really wasnt a need for the Domino to have any part of it be scaled in Imperial. It just isnt needed for how the tool references off of surfaces.