I am a new Domino user, and the first thing I tried joining were several boards for a small table top. I have always used a biscuit joiner for this joint and I have had no complaints with that tool for this application. But this was an opportunity to put the Domino through its paces. I had a few learnings along the way - I will share in case other newbies are reading:
(1) cutting mortises for dominos removes a lot more wood than cutting biscuits, so I learned to push the router tip in slowly - especially in hard wood.
(2) Like a biscuit joiner, it is easiest to get the y-axis (up and down relative to face) out of alignment. This happened when I rock the domino fence slightly off parallel, and I learned to make sure my last check after lining up on my cut mark, is that my fence is completely flat on the face that will be my table top.
(3) Glue up for dominos took me more time than glue up for biscuits. I learned to put glue on half the domino, insert into the mortise, then, pull the squeeze out up onto the second half of the domino - perform on each domino before putting glue along my board edges.
This third lesson led me to a question: How frequently should I put a domino into an edge joint? I eventually realized that part of what was slowing me down was the number of dominos I had in each joint - 4 in 24" long joints. I think I could have had equal results with 2 dominos over this distance. My understanding is that long-grain glue joints like this do not fail and biscuits or dominoes are really only placed in the joint to assure alignment. Right? Anyway, thanks in advance for any comments.
BTW - I am awed by Festool tools. These guys are doing truly great work. It is a joy to use my 6" Rotex, Deltex sanders and Ct-22. Thanks, Daniel.
(1) cutting mortises for dominos removes a lot more wood than cutting biscuits, so I learned to push the router tip in slowly - especially in hard wood.
(2) Like a biscuit joiner, it is easiest to get the y-axis (up and down relative to face) out of alignment. This happened when I rock the domino fence slightly off parallel, and I learned to make sure my last check after lining up on my cut mark, is that my fence is completely flat on the face that will be my table top.
(3) Glue up for dominos took me more time than glue up for biscuits. I learned to put glue on half the domino, insert into the mortise, then, pull the squeeze out up onto the second half of the domino - perform on each domino before putting glue along my board edges.
This third lesson led me to a question: How frequently should I put a domino into an edge joint? I eventually realized that part of what was slowing me down was the number of dominos I had in each joint - 4 in 24" long joints. I think I could have had equal results with 2 dominos over this distance. My understanding is that long-grain glue joints like this do not fail and biscuits or dominoes are really only placed in the joint to assure alignment. Right? Anyway, thanks in advance for any comments.
BTW - I am awed by Festool tools. These guys are doing truly great work. It is a joy to use my 6" Rotex, Deltex sanders and Ct-22. Thanks, Daniel.
