Dominoes for melamine cabinet construction

[fshanno]

How about melamine cabinet case construction using just dominoes.  No rabbets no screws and glue only in the mortise.  Would that work?  I've got this crazy machine that I love and that cost as much as a stationary machine.  I put mortises in everything.  My wife caught me trying to mortise the cat.  I've been using dominoes and pocket screws and no glue for prefinished ply cases and it works great.

It seems to me that it would be about as good as a dowel.  You wouldn't have to stick with just the little 5mm.  You could go with 8x40 dominoes and plunge 15mm in the sides and 25mm deep in the top and the deck. 

Sounds like a cool thing to me.  I tried it on a little test case and banged on it with a mallet and it seemed to hold together.  Somebody tell me this is a good idea.  I bet somebody has already done this and can heartily recommend.

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

John Lucas @ woodshopdemos.com does a lot of melamine and would be a good guy to talk about this.  Just doing a quick search of his site, I found a few resources where he uses the Domino with melamine.

http://www.woodshopdemos.com/Cab-joinery-1.htm
http://www.woodshopdemos.com/fes-sc-15.htm
http://www.woodshopdemos.com/fes-sc-14.htm

 

[mastercabman]

I just finished a job made out of Melamine.About 40 cabinets,framless and i use my Domino to put the cabinets together.
I use Melamine glue and it was pretty easy.I also installed the cabinets and they felt very sturdy when i was handling them.
I use 3/4" Melamine and about 400+ 5mm dominos.I also did pocket holes in a few places to help holding parts together until the glue sets.

 

[bruegf]

I've made a homemade 6' tall sysport, a set of 3 laundry room cabinets and a pair of garage cabinets using the domino and melamine.  Glued the joints w/ Gorilla glue, no screws or fasteners.  Laundry room cabinets were euro style and the garage cabinets were face frame with pine faces, pine plywood doors and melamine carcases.  Used 5mm dominoes in all 3 projects.  Worked very well.

http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=1374.0

Fred

 

[fshanno]

I've been messing around and I think I have a plan.  I think I'm going with an 8x40 domino on each end for alignment and screws in between.  RECEX Woodmaster screws or the Spax MDF screws I saw at McFeelys.  I have thousands of RECEX that I need to use so that's probably my choice.  I might put glue in the mortises.

I'm going to keep a close eye on that tear out issue too.  I might try a scoring pass if I run into trouble.

Did you use the outriggers to register mortises.  John shows that in his demo but I've had mixed results, cumulative error.

 

[bruegf]

I've found I have the best results with using the locating pins on one end of a panel only and then using pencil marks for the rest of the series on a given joint.  I use the narrow setting on one panel and then medium on the other to avoid any issues with exact alignment.  The only two mating mortises that I cut with the narrow setting are the ones I register with the pins on one end.

Fred

 

[b_m_hart]

I've had serious problems with the dominoes being too tight, and cracking the melamine coating pretty badly.  I live in a fairly low humidity, cool temperature environment, so I don't think that my dominoes have swollen...

 

[mastercabman]

I use the locating pins for the front and back and also use a pencil line somewhere in the middle.I usually put 3 5mm on each panel for wall cabinet and 4 5mm on base cabinet.
For wall cabinet i just use domino.I put a large amount of melamine glue and clamp it.    Clamp it good!
For the base,i put a few pocket holes where you wont see them and of course glue and clamp.

 

[bruegf]

Microwaving the dominoes for a few seconds helps considerably with fit.

Fred

 

[fshanno]

How critical is the glue?  Is it possible that the right kind of screws and no glue is as strong in melamine as glue with no mechanical fasteners?  I'm not talking confirmat screws, that's a whole nother ball game. 

If no glue at all makes us squeamish, what about the screws in the middle and a tight 8x40 in each end of the butt joint with glue in the mortise only?  Shouldn't an 8mm tenon plunged 25mm into the top or deck may be worth 2 5mm tenons,  and screws worth as much as the glue?

Well, this looks like a perfect application for outriggers but nobody seems to be using them, even for loosey goosey mortises.  What about that?

 

[Nigel]

As far as I know european cabinets are made  using only biscuits.So if you were to use dominos they would be stronger,maybe?

 

[bruegf]

I'm only a hobbyist so I can't say that I know that much about this topic, but I don't see how using only dominos and screws would be as strong as using dominos and glue (assuming you use a glue that will bond to melamine) especially with the poor quality particle board core I've seen in the box store melamine panels.

Hopefully others with more experience will provide some guidance.

Fred

 

[jvsteenb]

I may be way off here, but I suspect in quite a few cases domino's and screws will be stronger than domino's and glue.
Even if you were able to use a glue that sticks well to the melamine and handles well enough without special equipment,
I would be afraid that the glue would only be able to bond to the outermost pieces of the particleboard.
Especially with low-quality particleboard cores, you might be making a superior bond to a rather loosely bound product.
So your glueline will be rather useless, as a couple of mm into the core the bonding is much weaker.
When you make a nice pre-drilled hole and use a decent screw with sufficient thread depth,
you connect to the core much deeper then just edge-glueing can accomplish.

Then again, in HDF or MDF or even high-quality particleboard this equation may work out quite differently.

Regards,

Job

 

[b_m_hart]

Microwaving the dominoes for a few seconds helps considerably with fit.

Fred

While this may be true, I have a hard time expressing my annoyance at this in polite terms.  The notion of spending as much money as we all did on our Domino, only to need to do some mickey-mouse work-around to get things to work properly - is just entirely not acceptable. 

 

[clev1066]

I don't use melamine in my projects, but I have worked with it before. I think screws or even pocket screws work fairly well. Edge glue on melamine doesn't have much of a chance, as it will only be holding onto an easily removed surface, it it holds at all. Probably the best solution would be rabbet and dado construction with angled brads to toe-nail the shelves into the sides.

OTOH, what is this about the Dominos not fitting? I've only had my kit for a short time, and I got it used (well, pre-purchased anyway). The D*s do fit snug, but nowhere near the point of damaging the joint. Mind, I really only work with maple and cherry hardwood and on rare occasions plywood.

 

[fshanno]

I don't use melamine in my projects, but I have worked with it before. I think screws or even pocket screws work fairly well. Edge glue on melamine doesn't have much of a chance, as it will only be holding onto an easily removed surface, it it holds at all. Probably the best solution would be rabbet and dado construction with angled brads to toe-nail the shelves into the sides.

OTOH, what is this about the Dominos not fitting? I've only had my kit for a short time, and I got it used (well, pre-purchased anyway). The D*s do fit snug, but nowhere near the point of damaging the joint. Mind, I really only work with maple and cherry hardwood and on rare occasions plywood.

My dominos are pretty tight.  I have to uses pliers to pull them out, or take the piece to the woodworking vice.  I've torn them up on occasion when pulling them out.  You see, I live underwater, well.... the next closest thing, upper Texas coast, and the humidity makes dominoes which are stored in non-climate controlled spaces swell.  Microwaving them will shrink them.  We have air you can sink your teeth into here.  Little dominoes don't stand a chance.  It's good for the complexion though.  German POW's captured in the Sahara were brought to the Texas coastal bend.  They had them working in the fields and it was killing them.  I saw an interview on History Channel and one of them said he wished they had left him in the desert where it wasn't so hot.  Some murderers hid out in the woods behind my addition a few years back.  They gave up after about three days.  When asked why they surrendered. they said lethal injection wasn't as bad as the Big Thicket.  It's not like the jungle.  There are no tigers or cobras, nothing that will kill you outright.  No, the Thicket is worse, it will and make you wish you were dead.  Working outdoors here in the summer is something akin to water boarding.

 

[woodshopdemos]

Thank you Shane for supplying those references. Yes I have used a lot of white melamine and have a high appreciation for it. I dont use the outriggers anymore. Prefer a storystick. I use melamine glue and 5mm Dominos. I see no sense in leaving out the glue. I do use pocket holes for top and bottom plates to the sides and back...I am using them solely as a clamping method.
 

Here she uses the story stick from Woodpeckers to layout her Domino points.

She poses with another cabinet carcase in the works.

 

[fshanno]

Thank you Shane for supplying those references. Yes I have used a lot of white melamine and have a high appreciation for it. I dont use the outriggers anymore. Prefer a storystick. I use melamine glue and 5mm Dominos. I see no sense in leaving out the glue. I do use pocket holes for top and bottom plates to the sides and back...I am using them solely as a clamping method.
   

Here she uses the story stick from Woodpeckers to layout her Domino points.

She poses with another cabinet carcase in the works.

John,

Were you having trouble with accuracy using the outriggers?  I was.  They look fine, they work fine.  I've measured the distance with calipers from the fence pins to the outrigger pins to match both sides and that looks fine.  But the results are not fine.  I don't get it.  The mortises are the same, the outriggers are the same but the holes don't match.  My fence pins are accurate, I get great registration using them.  Is it me?  Is is something I said?  I was careful to say only positive things when the outriggers were in earshot. 

About the glue.  It's a question of time.  It takes me more time to apply and spread glue and wipe off squeeze out than any other task in kitchen case work.  Would you be comfortable with the notion of gluing only the mortises?  Say I went with two 8x40s in the wall cabinets with screws and 3 8x40s in the base cabinets.  Remember these are bigger dominoes and they are going in 25mm deep in the top and in the deck.  I've already moved to non-clued joints in plywood, just dominoes and pocket screws there.  But this would be new for melamine.  I've rabbeted, glued and screwed in the past.

 

[ForumMFG]

We construct all of our cabinets with 8mm Dia. dowels made of the same material as the dominos.  We use a GannoMat Index 130 dowel machine to drill and insert each dowel and the cabinets are solid.  Using domino's to construct casework should work just fine.  We use Titebond Doweling Glue, and it works great.

 

[woodshopdemos]

Thank you Shane for supplying those references. Yes I have used a lot of white melamine and have a high appreciation for it. I dont use the outriggers anymore. Prefer a storystick. I use melamine glue and 5mm Dominos. I see no sense in leaving out the glue. I do use pocket holes for top and bottom plates to the sides and back...I am using them solely as a clamping method.
   

Here she uses the story stick from Woodpeckers to layout her Domino points.

She poses with another cabinet carcase in the works.

John,

Were you having trouble with accuracy using the outriggers?  I was.  They look fine, they work fine.  I've measured the distance with calipers from the fence pins to the outrigger pins to match both sides and that looks fine.  But the results are not fine.  I don't get it.  The mortises are the same, the outriggers are the same but the holes don't match.  My fence pins are accurate, I get great registration using them.  Is it me?  Is is something I said?  I was careful to say only positive things when the outriggers were in earshot. 

About the glue.  It's a question of time.  It takes me more time to apply and spread glue and wipe off squeeze out than any other task in kitchen case work.  Would you be comfortable with the notion of gluing only the mortises?  Say I went with two 8x40s in the wall cabinets with screws and 3 8x40s in the base cabinets.  Remember these are bigger dominoes and they are going in 25mm deep in the top and in the deck.  I've already moved to non-clued joints in plywood, just dominoes and pocket screws there.  But this would be new for melamine.  I've rabbeted, glued and screwed in the past.

I wasn't having trouble with the accuracy, I just wanted all Dminos to be at a given distance from the top end. I wanted to specify that with the storysticks.
  In my thinking, melamine glue in the mortises and on both surfaces. kitchen and shop cabinets can hold 100lbs or more and are hanging off a couple of screws. I feel better with Dominoes and glue and pocket holes to hold the corners while glue dries.