Domino tenon cutters to make your own tenons.

[luvmytoolz]

Not Festool made but Festool related, I bought a set of Domino tenon cutters, and they look sensational!

Can't wait to machine some extra wide tenons with these for the wide settings on the 500 and 700.

5mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm cutters, around $180AUD shipped from this crowd:
https://www.findbuytool.com/collections/domino-router-cutters
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[Packard]

Well I tried the Domino tenon router bits tonight, they are absolutely superb!

It's hard to tell from the pics but the grooves are really well defined. The trick I found is to cut them 2mm wider than you want, and take off a 1mm pass from each side to get the full profile really well. I'm also thinking of machining some rollers for my electric cable stripper to press glue channels into the faces.

I thought that dominoes were compressed and expanded when exposed to moisture from the glue, and that expansion ensured a tight fit much like dowels and biscuits.

Do you have to compensate for that when cutting your own?

 

[ChuckM]

My understanding from various Festool dealer representatives I spoke to is that domino tenons do not act like biscuits, and they expand in contact with moisture just like any solid wood would. The surface is compressed to provide glue pockets. not for the purpose of expanding the wood. At least one vendor agrees with that line of thinking:https://www.ustoolandfastener.com/festool-domino-tenon-beech-wood-6-x-20-x-40mm-190-pack/

When I need to make my own tenons, I make them to the thickness that would give me the same kind of fit that I would expect from a hand-cut M&T. I do cut "glue grooves" on the surfaces:

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I have never experienced any telepgrahing in my domino work, not even in this project where the 4mm tenons are literally 0.5mm below the wood surface:

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[ChuckM]

Well I tried the Domino tenon router bits tonight, they are absolutely superb!

It's hard to tell from the pics but the grooves are really well defined. The trick I found is to cut them 2mm wider than you want, and take off a 1mm pass from each side to get the full profile really well. I'm also thinking of machining some rollers for my electric cable stripper to press glue channels into the faces.

How many meters of tenons did you produce in this batch? Does it show any wear on the cutting edge?

Please share some photos if you do go along with the cable stripper idea.

 

[luvmytoolz]

I ran about 40-50 pieces of White Oak 300-400mm long. Went surprisingly smoother than I expected and the edges are beautifully crisp, although they are 2mm undersize as I cut them to exact width I wanted before machining them.

These are going to be so incredibly handy for breadboard ends, and occasions where in the past I would have usually doubled up on the tennon to cover a bit extra width. I'll do the 8mm ones next at 31.5mm wide.
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[luvmytoolz]

Well I tried the Domino tenon router bits tonight, they are absolutely superb!

It's hard to tell from the pics but the grooves are really well defined. The trick I found is to cut them 2mm wider than you want, and take off a 1mm pass from each side to get the full profile really well. I'm also thinking of machining some rollers for my electric cable stripper to press glue channels into the faces.

I thought that dominoes were compressed and expanded when exposed to moisture from the glue, and that expansion ensured a tight fit much like dowels and biscuits.

Do you have to compensate for that when cutting your own?

They are a very snug fit as I've machined them and take a tiny bit of effort to push in. I actually measured a range of Festool tenons and they surprisingly are all over the place. They vary from 0.2mm under thickness to 0.3 over thickness. So given wood naturally expands to a degree with glue, I simply made them 0.25mm over thickness, which feels like a really good snug fit from testing.

Without glue pockets it's just normal face to face gluing which is plenty strong enough on it's own, but if I can rig something up to press glue channels in that would be even better, but not strictly needed.

 

[MikeGE]

I have a set of Whitehill cutters for my spindle moulder (shaper for NA) on the way from the UK.  Is there any reason why the tenons can't be wider than the standard Festool width and use the Domino to make several cuts for a wider slot?

On one of my projects I used the 12x100 tenons to join some cross piece.  I used two 12x100 tenons close to each other, but would have preferred to use a single 12x100 that was about 50mm wide instead of the standard 26mm.

 

[ChuckM]

Snip. Is there any reason why the tenons can't be wider than the standard Festool width and use the Domino to make several cuts for a wider slot? Snip.

Tenons can be custom-made to any width to suit a project's needed. They can even be made thicker, if desired, as long as the 1/3 guideline is more or less observed.

 

[MikeGE]

Tenons can be custom-made to any width to suit a project's needed. They can even be made thicker, if desired, as long as the 1/3 guideline is more or less observed.

I'll try this when my cutters arrive. I don't have any projects that need wider tenons now, but I'll experiment with some in cherry, maple, and walnut.

 

[guybo]

Snip. Is there any reason why the tenons can't be wider than the standard Festool width and use the Domino to make several cuts for a wider slot? Snip.

Tenons can be custom-made to any width to suit a project's needed. They can even be made thicker, if desired, as long as the 1/3 guideline is more or less observed.

agreed and they dont even need the rounded edges rectangles work great. Also this guy made the ends to look like regular thru mortise and tenon.https://www.festoolownersgroup.com/member-projects/domidrawers-revisited/msg101179/#msg101179

 

[luvmytoolz]

Is there any reason why the tenons can't be wider than the standard Festool width and use the Domino to make several cuts for a wider slot?

That's mainly the reason I bought these cutters, as I like to go wider. The DF500 on the widest setting adds 9.5mm to the standard width, so this works out really well for going that extra bit of width, but the DF700 on the other hand only adds 3mm, so you'd still have to do multiple plunges.

I could have just cut square stock but you then lose on the width compared to rounded, and I reckon if you're going to round over, glue channels are a must.

 

[Birdhunter]

When I built a king bed for some young friends, the headboard had bread board ends that spanned about 4 feet.

I used home made tenons that slid into mortises I cut with the 700 Domino. I used Baltic birch to make the tenons.

Not fancy, but they worked.

 

[petar73]

I have been using this cutter for all sizes dominos, and  aways make them from the same wood I use for the job.

 

[online421]

I use 8mm round over cutter head to make my own 14mm domino on the spindle moulder.

made another couple of thousands using purple heart.

you can see the spindle moulder in the background.

Cut to size actually takes longer than the round over!

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[Michael Kellough]

Finally a router bit designed to make tenon sticks! Shouldn’t have taken to so long but this one does it and has a clever twist Buy them at TSO.

 

[PaulMarcel]

I saw that this morning. Was just a bit disappointed that they didn't include some grooves in the side profile like the real deal. Excellent for releasing the hydraulic pressure and giving something to collapse if the domino swelled a bit beyond the mortise size

 

[Michael Kellough]

I saw that this morning. Was just a bit disappointed that they didn't include some grooves in the side profile like the real deal. Excellent for releasing the hydraulic pressure and giving something to collapse if the domino swelled a bit beyond the mortise size

Can’t remember, are those grooves embossed (compressed) or excavated?

 

[ChuckM]

Embossed.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Seems like a have seen a device that has a crank arm and a steel wheel that embossed a pattern into…

Now I remember, it was a thing to re-compress swollen biscuits to the proper thickness. Maybe that device didn’t emboss a pattern.

A frame holding two grooved wheels such that one of them is driven by X would do the trick. The non-driven wheel position to be adjustable for various tenon thickness. Of course this works best with long tenon sticks.

 

[luvmytoolz]

I have a heavily geared really high torque cable stripper I use for my foundry, and I've been thinking for some time if I machine a couple of rollers with crosshatch grooves, it wouldn't be difficult to modify one to then just feed the tenons through to emboss the faces.

Might be time to buy another of the same model stripper to experiment on!