Domino XL in custom door and window shop

[Joe Calhoon]

We make custom doors and windows. Predominantly European style tilt turn, sliding and folding door systems in 68 & 78mm thickness. We have a numeric tenoner and Hoffman Bohre System drill that handles our joinery quickly and efficiently. The problems arise with large and curved work. I think the XL will be a perfect addition to our shop to handle the odd stuff. It could also be the main joinery tool for a small shop or jobsite shop. On large work it is usually easier to take the tool to the work instead of clamping it down to a stationary machine.

We tried it out today on a fixed sash that is just over 10' tall. 10' is about the limit for the scale bar on our tenoner so we decided to try the XL instead of doweling the unit. Normally it is best to preform the corner joinery on a sash like this before the coping and profiling. Sometimes we get into situations where the profiling has to be done first and wanted to see how it worked. The sash is fairly narrow at 81mm so we went with a 14mm Domino in the bottom and twin 10mm on the top. It handled going into the copes and profile very well. Just keep a slow steady feed and it cuts clean and smooth. I put one corner together and everything fit fine. We will press it when the Sipo tenons arrive. By accident we put in a through mortise. Be careful here with your hand placement. Festool advises keeping your hand on the front handle at all times for a good reason. The through mortises cut clean without any breakout. Through tenons are good in window construction with rebated edges. otherwise it gets complicated placing the mortises. I bet furniture makers will like this ability also. the dust pickup like most Festools is excellent. I can see the need for another Dust Deputy to save bags.

I see lots of uses for the XL in this shop. Over the next few weeks it will be used on doors, hardware mortises and curved work. Fire away with any questions about the use of this in a millwork shop.

Joe Calhoon

 

[Joe Calhoon]

More pictures

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

Good stuff, Joe. Welcome to the forum. I'd be interested in seeing the finished window and even stages of the build. Looks like the XL did the trick.

 

[Kev]

This isn't fair - I've been fighting the urge to rush out and by an XL so well (if sobbing at night doesn't count).

Now with trials and the obvious run of reviews, it's going to be very hard to continue the fight  [crying]

Joe,

Without trying to put words in your mouth, if Domino 500 & 700XL were the only M&T tools you had, how limited would you feel you were (both capability and performance if you could estimate)?

Kev.

 

[woodguy7]

Welcome to the forum Joe.
I have used the XL for making a stormproof window & it worked out beautifully.

Woodguy

 

[Joe Calhoon]

Hi Kev,
I have been in the woodworking business for 35 years and have been the whole range of mortise and tenon gear from hollow chisel to several slot mortisers and a Maka. Early on the Domino would have been something that really simplifyed joinery. I think it is faster and more accurate than a standard horizontal slot mortiser. The oscillating movement of the cutter is very smooth compared to a horizontal slot mortiser. the beauty is in the simplicity and ease of setup. No doubt my tenoner and frame drill are faster for most production jobs but they are also very expensive and still time consuming to set up for one off and complicated work.

From what I can see the only limits would be for narrow mullions say in the 25 mm wide to 35mm wide range. This is where a standard dowel or hollow chisel might be the only solution. I have no experience with the smaller Domino and don't know if it will go this small.

Joe

 

[Kev]

Hi Kev,
I have been in the woodworking business for 35 years and have been the whole range of mortise and tenon gear from hollow chisel to several slot mortisers and a Maka. Early on the Domino would have been something that really simplifyed joinery. I think it is faster and more accurate than a standard horizontal slot mortiser. The oscillating movement of the cutter is very smooth compared to a horizontal slot mortiser. the beauty is in the simplicity and ease of setup. No doubt my tenoner and frame drill are faster for most production jobs but they are also very expensive and still time consuming to set up for one off and complicated work.

From what I can see the only limits would be for narrow mullions say in the 25 mm wide to 35mm wide range. This is where a standard dowel or hollow chisel might be the only solution. I have no experience with the smaller Domino and don't know if it will go this small.

Joe

Thanks Joe,

The smaller Domino should have no problem down to 25mm stock (or even less).

As you can imagine with all those years of experience, it's easy for an amateur to apply techniques using something like the Domino to achieve a good result in appearance - I suppose the real skill is in understanding the forces at play so that whatever is made stands the test of time. Something I'd like to tackle with the domino would be large glass exterior doors ... even talking about making them myself makes my wife very nervous  [unsure]

Kev

 

[Joe Calhoon]

Kev,
You are right, the smaller machine looks like it will go that small. From what I can see the XL is pretty simple to set up and operate. Of course there is a lot more to making glass doors than the corner connection. Its not rocket science though. I will be posting some progress pictures in the next week of thick Euro doors using the XL for joinery.

The Sipo tenons arrived and we pressed the tall fixed window. See pictures.
We also had a large fixed angled window. I have to say the XL shined on this one. Normally we would have doweled the angle corners. Even with good boring equipment dowels on angle never seem to line up spot on. These angles can be done on a tenoner    but with a lot of setup and confusion. We were prepared with blocks and hand clamps to pull on the corners and faces to get everything in alignment. No need, with a little pressure everything slipped right into place.

Joe

 

[jacko9]

Kev,
You are right, the smaller machine looks like it will go that small. From what I can see the XL is pretty simple to set up and operate. Of course there is a lot more to making glass doors than the corner connection. Its not rocket science though. I will be posting some progress pictures in the next week of thick Euro doors using the XL for joinery.

The Sipo tenons arrived and we pressed the tall fixed window. See pictures.
We also had a large fixed angled window. I have to say the XL shined on this one. Normally we would have doweled the angle corners. Even with good boring equipment dowels on angle never seem to line up spot on. These angles can be done on a tenoner    but with a lot of setup and confusion. We were prepared with blocks and hand clamps to pull on the corners and faces to get everything in alignment. No need, with a little pressure everything slipped right into place.

Joe

Nice work Joe, no arguing with a guy that buys his Tidebond in the 5 gallon bucket [big grin]

 

[Joe Calhoon]

As promised here are pictures of a batch of french, sliding and folding doors in progress. I tried to take pictures of most of the non Domino process as well.

Normally Euro style French doors are made with slot and tenoned corners with the bottom rail enlarged for height with added stacked rails that are doweled in but not connected to the bottom piece to allow for expansion. On this batch of doors the customer did not want to see the joint line of the stacked rail. Normally we dowel these types of doors. For the test we did half the doors with the XL with some surprising results.

We burned through the box of 12mm Sipo tenons Shane sent to build 7 of the doors. I will be interested to find out the cost of the Sipo tenons. The German dowels we use are made from a rot resistant hard wood and are pretty expensive as well, so it will be interesting to compare costs. I figure Festool can fund Shane’s retirement with sales of tenons and vac bags... We finally moved the XL to our vac that has the Dust Deputy cyclone to save bags. All but a tiny bit of dust from the bottom of the mortise is collected.

Festool in Europe has a time comparison of using the XL vs a standard slot mortiser. In their test to do a simple 3 rail door the XL took about 18 minutes and the slot mortiser was about 38 minutes per door. We used to use a mortiser of this type for door construction and this is about right. The doors  we timed were similar 3 rail doors only with double tenons and dowels. Our doweling machine is a non CNC Hoffmann Bore System made for doors and windows. I thought it would be faster by quite a bit compared to the XL. The Hoffmann has the advantage of a fence system that requires no marking of joinery locations, even the mid rails. For these doors the XL took about 5-6 minutes for layout and 19 minutes for cutting the mortise. About 25 minutes total. The Hoffmann was a couple minutes to set the fences and 20 minutes to drill the holes. About 22 minutes total. Compared to what this machine costs the XL did good! I know the XL will run circles around a standard slot mortiser. These are simple doors, I see the XL more useful as doors get larger and more complex.

We like to build doors and windows right to size so no trimming is necessary after assembly. to do this joinery has to be accurate. The XL preformed well for this also. Part of it is the precision sizing of the Dominos. This was my first time to use a Domino but my associate in the shop has the small one at home. He latched right on the the XL. Another thing I liked is how the Dominos hold the glue, we were able to coat both mortise and tenon with out getting a lot of glue pushed back like you get with dowels and slot tenons. I think the embossing on the face of the Domino does this.

In Germany the Rosenheim Institute has tested slot & tenon vs dowel vs mechanical corner connections for windows. They each have different advantages with the slot and tenon the strongest but dowels better for cycles of moisture.  My feeling is the Domino would test very well.

Joe

 

[Joe Calhoon]

More photos of the process. We cut the lock mortise with a Maka. The Domino almost did this but would not go quite deep enough. Does anyone know if it is safe to make a larger  width of mortise with the Domino. For example to turn a 14mm mortis into a 16mm by cutting it in 2 passes. It might put a strain on the machine.

Joe

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

Joe,

I wouldn't expect there to be a problem using the Domino to make consecutive overlapping mortises as long as you plunge slowly. Guy Ashley did that with his gate build and custom made tenons.

http://festoolownersgroup.com/member-projects/oak-gates-with-the-domino-xl

Thanks for the analysis of time savings between the two machines and verification that the numbers published by Germany are accurate.

I'll talk to Christian about allowing me to collect all of the profits from Sipo tenon sales. If he says yes, expect the prices to go up.  [wink]

Shane

 

[tiralie]

Joe:
I meant to comment sooner but wanted to thank you for your interesting and educational posts.

We like to build doors and windows right to size so no trimming is necessary after assembly. to do this joinery has to be accurate.

No kidding, jeesh  [big grin]

Tim

 

[CDM]

This is a really cool set of posts.  What woods do you use mostly?  I see here pine and...is that mahagony?

 

[Joe Calhoon]

Joe,

I wouldn't expect there to be a problem using the Domino to make consecutive overlapping mortises as long as you plunge slowly. Guy Ashley did that with his gate build and custom made tenons.

http://festoolownersgroup.com/member-projects/oak-gates-with-the-domino-xl

Thanks Shane,
I will try that. Do you think Festool would ever provide a 16mm bit for these. We do a lot of lock mortises that size.

Joe

 

[Joe Calhoon]

Tim,
For a lot of years we built doors with loose tenons undersized for width and would knock the rails to correct position at assembly. We also had a dowel machine that was not super accurate and had to build oversize for trimming after assembly. It gets to be a lot of no value added work. You have to work with what your machines are capable of though.
Glad you enjoyed the posts, it has been fun to try this.

Joe

 

[Joe Calhoon]

This is a really cool set of posts.  What woods do you use mostly?  I see here pine and...is that mahagony?

CDM,
We use mostly Mahogany and CVG Fir. The pine in the picture is a sample from the tooling company Zuani. I would like to build doors from timber that grows in my backyard but Colorado does not have many good species for outdoor use. We used to get Ponderosa Pine but it is pretty rare now.
The doors are all Mahogany.

Joe

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

Do you think Festool would ever provide a 16mm bit for these. We do a lot of lock mortises that size.

Joe, I measured the opening in the fence and it won't accommodate a larger cutter without modification. So, unless the fence is modified and there's a Domino XL v.2.0, I wouldn't expect to see bigger cutters.

 

[Joe Calhoon]

The Festool booth at Fensterbau in Germany was fun. Except for seeing all the stuff that is not available in the US. The vacuum clamp would be perfect for holding parts to be mortised. Another more expensive option is the Barth Vacumobile. It is an amazing work bench available over here.

Joe

 

[bwiele]

Joe -

Thanks for all the posts and the details.  I loved seeing all the really substantial tooling you guys use for that kind of work.  It's also refreshing for a hobbyist (like me) to see Festools incorporated into that kind of environment.  Makes me feel like I'm not worthy of owning as many Festool tools as I do!  For what it's worth, I know that's true of the MiniMax CU300 Smart combination machine!  I have NO business having that thing...