Domino XL 700 - how far do you push it?

[allthegearnoidea]

Assume using the 14 x 140mm max size tenons, how far do you push the use of the machine before you revert to traditional mortice and tenon joinery?

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I would assume "it depends", although that is the worst answer ever.
What are you trying to join/make? Is there room for multiple tenons? Having a few of them spaced as far apart as is practical makes a difference. Also, if the material is thick enough, you can have rows and columns.
These have been together for 6 years, splayed like a capitol A, with wheels on the bottom of them and a heavy solid surface top and in a school environment . They are only 10mm x 50mm Dominos and doing fine. Grouping them helps a lot.

 

[Birdhunter]

The two biggest projects I’ve made are a king sized bed with a full sized head board and an office reception center.

The bed obviously takes a lot of spontaneous stresses especially with two active children using it as a trampoline.

Each of the 4 sides of the bed frame were two 2x6 white oak boards each 12 feet long bonded together. The joints were knock down using the Festool 700 connectors paired with one solid tenon. The headboard was 6 6x2 white oak boards joined together to form a 36” high by 10 foot headboard.

Years later, the bed is rock solid.  I could have used traditional mortise tenon construction, but the 700 connectors worked fine.

 

[allthegearnoidea]

Thanks for the replies.

With the full fat 14x140 dominos in mind, I guess i was hypothetically thinking about maximum door sizes. Essentially, pound for pound, with the right glue and dowels to pin, can the equivalent number of dominos as the size of a tenon be equally as strong, or are there certain limits where you'd be wary of using a domino?

 

[MaineShop]

One of the companies I do a lot of shop work for makes a lot of interior doors per year in their shop. The shop feeds the construction arm of the company and vice versa so at least several houses worth of interior and exterior doors per year. While they are pretty good making them on a large digitally controlled shaper, I use a domino to make doors in my shop from time to time and if I were making one for my own house it is domino construction hands down. The more traditional method may be better for production but personally I find the domino made door to be a better product in terms of alignments and solid construction.

 

[allthegearnoidea]

One of the companies I do a lot of shop work for makes a lot of interior doors per year in their shop. The shop feeds the construction arm of the company and vice versa so at least several houses worth of interior and exterior doors per year. While they are pretty good making them on a large digitally controlled shaper, I use a domino to make doors in my shop from time to time and if I were making one for my own house it is domino construction hands down. The more traditional method may be better for production but personally I find the domino made door to be a better product in terms of alignments and solid construction.

Thanks - that's useful. Would you extend the same logic to reasonably sized exterior doors (i.e. not 9 ft tall barn doors)? If using the external sipo dominos?

 

[squall_line]

You may want to look up the postings by [member=60651]TXFIVEO[/member] ; he makes custom barn doors and I believe he uses dominoes in his construction.  Not sure if he's done exterior doors, but some of the stuff he posts is pretty elaborate and doesn't look lightweight.

 

[allthegearnoidea]

You may want to look up the postings by [member=60651]TXFIVEO[/member] ; he makes custom barn doors and I believe he uses dominoes in his construction.  Not sure if he's done exterior doors, but some of the stuff he posts is pretty elaborate and doesn't look lightweight.

Thanks, that's a useful point of reference. Although a slightly different use case and different forces with sliding strap/track doors vs heavy hinged exterior doors.

Would be interesting to hear about traditional exterior hung doors and what successes/failures people might have had.

 

[TXFIVEO]

Good morning.  I have pushed the Domino pretty hard and it has passed with flying colors.  While I mainly use the 14mm x 140mm for interior doors I have used them on several HINGED Douglas Fir and Mahogany FRONT doors without any issues. 

 

[nvalinski]

This guy used them to make a balcony... not saying I'd be comfortable agreeing that it's properly engineered, but the fact that it stays up is quite the testament to their strength.

DF700 Balcony Build

 

[Wood Eye]

I've got a little jig that has labelled the locator pin setups and width to make wide mortises (e.g. some exterior CVG fir screen doors that I've made for some of the nice older houses in my area, I use the DF700 to make ~3-1/2" wide, 70MM deep mortises).  A while back I planed a few beech boards down to 14MM, ran them through my router table to get the same surface as the Festool Dominos, and when I need some of a certain width I cut the tenons from those boards on the table/miter saw and I've got my wide tenons.  A little tedious the first time (hour or so) routing the glue channels in the 14MM planed boards, but it yielded ~7-1/4" x 30' of of tenon stock.  Now when I need, say a 3" wide tenon, it takes about a minute to cut enough for a door. Going through them fast enough that I kind of wish I'd run more than the three boards, but it seemed like overkill at he time.

 

[MikkelF]

Woodeye: Is it really needed with the gluelines? I fully understand the reasoning behind it, but I have never seen a traditional mortise and tenon where there was routed a glueline into it… So was just wondering if its really needed?

 

[simo.ahtola@netikka.fi]

Hei,

I have made my own oversized dominos without gluelines and they have worked fine.

BR. Simo