Domino Patent expiry

[Mini Me]

I've tended to notice over the decades that copying a product AND the associated level of usability and quality usually doesn't result in a dramatic price reduction on an equal basis copy.

While the original item is held at a high price protected by a patent and no competing product there is no reason after the patent expires for any new copy to be priced a whole lot lower it just needs to be lower. If Festool were to lower the price when the patent expires the copies would also have a lower price than Festool no matter how low they go.

 

[luvmytoolz]

While the original item is held at a high price protected by a patent and no competing product there is no reason after the patent expires for any new copy to be priced a whole lot lower it just needs to be lower. If Festool were to lower the price when the patent expires the copies would also have a lower price than Festool no matter how low they go.

Exactly my point which along with other tool clones already released and on the market, just reinforces the falseness of the perception many have that the only thing stopping much cheaper but equal quality clones are patents.

 

[Neil Lickfold]

That's a great price if it's in good nick!

The down side, they won't freight it. So is pick up only. Wellington is either a long drive, or fly down getting it. Neither of which I want to do. But it does look like it's new. So if any one in NZ wants a DF500, its a great buy. It's on Facebook market place and Trademe, a NZ selling site. I don't know it's year of manufacture, but is not all scratched up.

 

[Ebuwan]

Heaps of copycat Multi Tools around, I've owned and ultimately sold several of them, but while it was more expensive, the Fein is still the best one I've used and worth every cent. I'll never sell that one.

I haven't tried the Festool one however which does also look really good. I'm thinking of getting it in the cordless at some point.

I've tended to notice over the decades that copying a product AND the associated level of usability and quality usually doesn't result in a dramatic price reduction on an equal basis copy.

The price reduction usually takes the form of design or quality compromises that render it not worth it in many cases, except for those truly determined to save costs, at all costs.

I had an older makita mutli tool for years; got the festool cordless one last year; I don't know why i waited so long, it was like night and day improvement.

 

[Cheese]

Heaps of copycat Multi Tools around, I've owned and ultimately sold several of them, but while it was more expensive, the Fein is still the best one I've used and worth every cent. I'll never sell that one.

I haven't tried the Festool one however which does also look really good. I'm thinking of getting it in the cordless at some point.

FWIW...the OSC 18 is made by Fein as was the OS 400.

 

[camhabib]

This argument assumes a significant profit margin on the tool. But quality isn’t cheap, and has been seen countless times across industries, making an item to the same tolerances and specifications often times causes it to cost the same. If something is cheaper, there’s often a reason for it, and it typically isn’t greed.

 

[sharwell]

One thing that made me feel more confident with my DF500 purchase is the high resale price it held e.g. on Facebook Marketplace. About to the point where if I didn't like it at some point in the future I could call its use a slightly more expensive than average rental. If it makes a difference, here are some other things I've learned using it over time:

* For many situations, a butt joint with screws is faster than using the domino if you have a decent clamping setup. The Domino does _some_ things exceptionally well, and you will pay for those things in time, so focus on using it for the things it truly excels at (e.g. alignment of visible faces, hidden joints, improving shear strength). I'm still trying to find ways to be faster and perhaps will post a video or article in the future about how I mark parts for Domino use.
* I can't imagine trying to use the domino without the Festool vacuum. If you don't have the vacuum, get that first or together.
* The tenons are cheap (call it $0.12/ea for the 6x40 I use the most). I use them whenever and wherever I want and just don't worry about the cost.
* But the knock-down connectors are _not_ cheap.

I wouldn't expect my decision making, or my happiness with the purchase, to change significantly for quite some time. Even if a new product hits the market, you'll be waiting a while to see how well it holds up long-term.

 

[ChuckS]

While the original item is held at a high price protected by a patent and no competing product there is no re

How much lower the clones need to price to compete would depend, among other things, on a) who makes it and their reputation, and b) if the clone has better features such as an LED, deeper cutting capacity (e.g. between a DF500 and a DF700), etc. If the clones are just copies with no change, a deep discount is needed.

A 5 to 10% discount wouldn't cut it given the Festool's proven track record and market reputation. A lot of woodworkers would be willing to pay extra to own a US-made or German tool than its imported counterpart.

 

[Cheese]

A 5 to 10% discount wouldn't cut it given the Festool's proven track record and market reputation. A lot of woodworkers would be willing to pay extra to own a US-made or German tool than its imported counterpart.

And let's not forget the 3 year warranty...for folks in the US, we can already purchase a Domino for 20% off. There's one coming up on the Festool Recon Site and it carries a 1 year warranty.

The current 100Y anniversary edition is essentially discounted 15% with a 3 year warranty.

 

[Mini Me]

A 5 to 10% discount wouldn't cut it given the Festool's proven track record and market reputation. A lot of woodworkers would be willing to pay extra to own a US-made or German tool than its imported counterpart.

That is not how manufacturers price things for retail sale. Woodworkers are no different to any other person who buys tools, you only have to look at the criticism and discussion around the pricing of Festool products to see that.

 

[ChuckS]

That is not how manufacturers price things for retail sale. Woodworkers are no different to any other person who buys tools, you only have to look at the criticism and discussion around the pricing of Festool products to see that.

I don't know how manufacturers set their prices, and each manufacturer is different. I doubt anyone can claim they know about every manufacturer's pricing policy. Just look at the varying prices for the same or similar products when you Google them (some are 1/2 of the prices floating around).

But I'm talking about retail prices of a clone DF500, which have to be a deep discount compared to Festool's to gain a market share when they launch.

 

[sansbury]

I would bet that you will see a $199 Bauer knockoff for sale at Horror Fright that sounds like a coffee grinder and is usable for butting together sheets of 18mm ply which, let’s be honest, is probably 95% of what 95% of people do with their DF500s. You could take a lot of cost out of the fence if it’s completely fixed and the oscillating drive if you accept a MTBF of 100 hours or so. For a DIYer building a bookshelf once a year it would be fine.

Now it could get interesting if HF decides they actually want to try selling a good quality tool because I’d bet for $349 or so they could make a very decent clone. Not as good as a Domino but plenty good enough for most users for 1/3 the price. In the end you will likely see a lot more people using mortising machines who never would have put up the scratch for the Festool. They might lose some of the serious hobbyists who stretched their budget to buy one but could live with an OK version. Festool sells a hundred non-patented tools at a premium price because some buyers are happy to spend more to get more.

 

[woodferret]

Mortising is one of those things where you either do well, or you go home. Mortise-like hole is not really a thing unless you want to make tiktok videos about it.

 

[luvmytoolz]

I would bet that you will see a $199 Bauer knockoff for sale at Horror Fright that sounds like a coffee grinder and is usable for butting together sheets of 18mm ply which, let’s be honest, is probably 95% of what 95% of people do with their DF500s.

I think you're being overly generous on the capability here. A while back Triton who has decades of tool and machine R&D manufacturing experience, tried to create their own version of the Mafell Duo Doweller that was a dismal flop and couldn't even drill holes in a straight line or the specified distance.

For some years now there have also been a multitude of Asian knock-offs of the Zeta P2 that come in around 25% the cost of new, but are barely usable, and as with the Triton Doweller couldn't deliver repeatable inline results.

 

[sansbury]

I think you're being overly generous on the capability here.

Perhaps, we will see.

The Duo is a really demanding piece of kit to manufacture, much more so than a Domino. My bet is that you can delete many Domino features (e.g. 45° mortises) and have a tool that's fairly simple to produce but still feature-complete for the most common uses. China routinely builds a lot of this kind of thing for 50% or less of what it costs to make the same thing in the West, and in many cases the quality isn't that much lower. I have bought a fair amount of stuff direct from manufacturers in China and they are often capable of producing much higher quality than big US brands pay them to do. I do think a feature-for-feature clone of equivalent quality would come in at a fairly large proportion of the same cost.

 

[ChuckS]

That is not how manufacturers price things for retail sale. Woodworkers are no different to any other person who buys tools, you only have to look at the criticism and discussion around the pricing of Festool products to see that.

I don't know how manufacturers set their prices, and each manufacturer is different. I doubt anyone can claim they know about every manufacturer's pricing policy. Just look at the varying prices for the same or similar products when you Google them (some are 1/2 of the prices floating around).

But I'm talking about retail prices of a clone DF500, which have to be a deep discount comparedto Festool's to gain a market share when they launch.

Perhaps, we will see.

The Duo is a really demanding piece of kit to manufacture, much more so than a Domino. My bet is that you can delete many Domino features (e.g. 45° mortises) and have a tool that's fairly simple to produce but still feature-complete for the most common uses. China routinely builds a lot of this kind of thing for 50% or less of what it costs to make the same thing in the West, and in many cases the quality isn't that much lower. I have bought a fair amount of stuff direct from manufacturers in China and they are often capable of producing much higher quality than big US brands pay them to do. I do think a feature-for-feature clone of equivalent quality would come in at a fairly large proportion of the same cost.

The stripped down version of the DF500 has already existed, both commercially and from DIYers. The Chinese ones sold about $100(?), made of aluminum or plastic without the router. And then there're the "Domino Killers."

They are for people whom Festool has no intention of reaching from a pricing point of view. That'd be the best thing to happen to Festool if its patent protection ends and its competitors are all aiming to release their new clones for that segment of potential buyers.

 

[bertv]

IMO manufacturing a DF500 knock off without also offering the consumables (eg the Donino’s) would limit the appeal for potential users. And those two products are very different and esp. making Domino’s would take a great effort, b/c reverse engineering those is more difficult, I think.

 

[luvmytoolz]

IMO manufacturing a DF500 knock off without also offering the consumables (eg the Donino’s) would limit the appeal for potential users. And those two products are very different and esp. making Domino’s would take a great effort, b/c reverse engineering those is more difficult, I think.

It's actually more trivial than you'd think, you can very easily get bulk tenons for the Domino off the major Asian online sellers very cheaply, I even buy bulk connectors for the Lamello Zeta at around 10% of the genuine connector cost with no functional difference.

Other online sellers like findbuytool also sell the specialty cutters to machine your own DF500 and DF700 Domino tenons that have the proper fluted edges. I've attached a couple pics from a lot I made recently. The thing I also really like with these cutters is that I can make extra wide tenons for the DF500! That's a really useful feature of making your own tenons!

 

[sansbury]

IMO manufacturing a DF500 knock off without also offering the consumables (eg the Donino’s) would limit the appeal for potential users.

Is there any reason they couldn't offer a "Deluxe European Tenon Compatible" clone? This is almost the opposite of the razor blade model, the razor is extremely expensive and the blades are only somewhat so. Most DIYers can afford a sack of 5mm tenons a lot more easily than they can afford a $1300 joinery machine.

 

[ReneS]

Regarding the benefits of the Domino and whether knock offs will be Domino killers...

1. I have gone through an evolution of making mortise and tenon joints over the past several years. I have used a router table and a table saw to cut the tenons. I have used a router table to cut mortises. When I "advanced" to floating tenons, I built a few jigs to cut the mortises with a hand held plunge router. All of the methods I used were fairly tedious. Cutting the mortises involved a fair bit of vacuuming out of the mortises, for example.

I have had the Domino for a year or two. There is a learning curve, but it is fairly gentle. (Watching Sedge's videos was very helpful.) I build my cabinets mostly with stiles and rails, and a few of the mortises take good control to get them perfectly aligned. But even when I am a little off, the result is easily addressed with minor sanding. This issue is with just the mortises that receive the rails that cross the cabinet connecting the two side panels. The others are a piece of cake. If I was building cabinets out of plywood, this would pretty much be a non-issue, especially now that I have the TSO Big Foot.

Bottom line - I love this machine. It is so much faster than what I was doing before. I still get a sense of satisfaction whenever I use it, which is fairly often. Punching out a bunch of mortises in a few minutes is a gas.

2. As far as clones go...

My first track saw was a Makita. It got good reviews on YouTube, and years ago when I worked construction, I was a big Makita fan. Sadly, their rails are not dead on consistent, which is a huge pain. When I connect two rails together for a long rip, or switch from one rail to another, such as going from rips to cross cuts on the MFT, the saw is either loose on one rail or tight on the other. Switching from rips to cross cuts, this is just a time suck. But running the saw down two connected rails for a long rip, it is a pita. Oh yeah, and looking at the method Makita uses to adjust the tightness of the saw on the track, you can see that they cheaped out, and that is another cause of the problems running the saw down the rail.

So bottom line, where precision is needed, I would stick with the company that is known for its precision.

Just my opinion, for what it's worth (about .02 USD). Some of us want precision, consistency, and ease of use, and are willing to pay for it. Others prefer to put time and effort rather than money into woodworking. It's all good.