make your own dominos

[Timtool]

being out of 5x30 dominos i suddenly asked myself if it is worth making them yourself or not, so i took a piece of 43mm thick beech about 700x150mm big. planed and cut into strips, it gave me almost 1000 dominos!
making them took about an hour and saved me something around €45 in tenons, going to the dealer would have taken an hour aswell lol

anyway, here they are, i planed blocks of 42x75mm, ripped them in half to give 18x75mm and ripped that to give 18x5mm strips (the size of 5mm dominos) and rounded over the edges on the router table.



(these are not all of them, it's the remains that didn't fit into the systainer)

anybody else done this?
im thinking i will never buy dominos again, maybe even make future ones out of softwood aswell because beech is overkill in many situation.

 

[GPowers]

Any problem not having the glue groves?

 

[Nigel]

I've only made the 10mm ones in oak for exterior use.Saves a bit of cash....

This is my 'production line'Cutting dominoes

 

[GPowers]

kind-a scary with all that small stock traped between the fence and the blade [scared]

 

[Nigel]

I know it looks scary GP but there's a gap between the fence and dominoes,it's a split fence.So they never fly about.

 

[Alan m]

i think iwould make my own for inlay purposes or if i ran out
it wouldnt be that hard to put the grooves in them
its a wonder nobody has created a bit for making them.

 

[Jesse Cloud]

I make my own dominoes when I need a longer size (route the mortise with a router and an end mill), but I can't make a thousand of them in an hour. [sad]

Economically, if Festool makes a domino the size I need, there is no justification for making my own.  Here in the US they sell for about 17 cents a piece (more or less depending on size and quantity).  I use ten of them in a chair that I sell for $800.  Much better to spend my time making chairs instead of making dominoes.

 

[waynelang2001]

i think iwould make my own for inlay purposes or if i ran out
it wouldnt be that hard to put the grooves in them
its a wonder nobody has created a bit for making them.

I was just thinking the same thing. I have had a few custom cutters made for my spindle and it would be easy to design one for the domino. Also If I had a domino and needed to make domino's i think sending through the drum sander for a final pass with 60 grit paper would really give them some good bite for the glue.

 

[woodguy7]

Wayne, how is that drum sander working out for ya.  Any niggles with it ?

Jesse, well said.  Better to spend your time making chairs  [big grin]

 

[justinh]

I make my own.  I use the jointer to bevel the edges instead of rounding them over.  The advantage to homemade is that you can make them in widths and lengths to match the different settings on the Domino and you can size them so they don't have to be pounded in with a hammer or extracted with vise grips.  The fit the way a tenon joint should fit, snug but not too snug.

Justin

 

[PaulMarcel]

I've made them myself for some shelving project where I needed them much longer (75mm).

Hardest part was dimpling the logo in.  [embarassed]

 

[maxpower10]

I make my own dominoes when I need a longer size (route the mortise with a router and an end mill), but I can't make a thousand of them in an hour. [sad]

Economically, if Festool makes a domino the size I need, there is no justification for making my own.  Here in the US they sell for about 17 cents a piece (more or less depending on size and quantity).  I use ten of them in a chair that I sell for $800.  Much better to spend my time making chairs instead of making dominoes.

I'd like to see a picture of that chair Jesse, sounds like it would be worth viewing!

 

[PaulMarcel]

Nice choice of avatar for this thread, Max

 

[Kevin D.]

I've only made the 10mm ones in oak for exterior use.Saves a bit of cash....

That's interesting.  I assumed that one would use Mahogany to replicate their own SIPO's.  Is Oak just as suitably for water exposure?

Are there other woods that others have used to make Domino's for outdoor use?

 

[Nigel]

In the past before tropical hardwoods became widely available Oak and Chestnut were used for exterior but untreated they are probably not as durable as Mahogany or Iroko.Having said that Chestnut fence posts seem to last an awful long time.

I've used both Oak and Chestnut for making Dominoes usually for the widest setting.

I can easily make 500 in half an hour saving 158.82 euros on the cost of buying Sipo ones.I doubt I could earn that much even making chairs  [wink]

The wood is just offcuts.Don't bother planing just rip to size.Then...bzzzz

[attachthumb=#]

 

[Timtool]

Any problem not having the glue groves?

on some of the strips i routed small grooves length wise, but i gave up because it took too long.
if there was a cutter available that could make many small grooves simultaneously, like sawtooth cutter for glue-ups then i would use it.
i think length grooves would be better than the width grooves on the festool dominos, i think they tend to scrape the glue off the mortise, while length-wise grooves would at least leave glue where the groove is.

 

[Alan m]

could you use a cutter like this . just use the very tip of the cutter to do the grooveslink

 

[waynelang2001]

Wayne, how is that drum sander working out for ya.  Any niggles with it ?

Jesse, well said.  Better to spend your time making chairs  [big grin]

Woodguy,

The drum sander is working a treat, I'm not sure how i worked without it before. I only ever had one niggle when the sandpaper came loose during a sanding run. It basically destroyed the paper on one side by burning it. But it held together so im still able to use half the paper.

Back to the domino's

If and when I get one I will have some custom cutters made that will both round them and cut steps into the round to create the grooves.

( maybe I should get a CNC router also to make make the domino logo on each side.......it would be faster then Paul's method )  [dead horse]

 

[mouppe]

A couple of passes with one of these will do the trick. In the old days (and in some cases today too), glue surfaces for veneers were prepared using these blades.

http://www.lie-nielsen.com/?pg=4

 

[Jesse Cloud]

I make my own dominoes when I need a longer size (route the mortise with a router and an end mill), but I can't make a thousand of them in an hour. [sad]

Economically, if Festool makes a domino the size I need, there is no justification for making my own.  Here in the US they sell for about 17 cents a piece (more or less depending on size and quantity).  I use ten of them in a chair that I sell for $800.  Much better to spend my time making chairs instead of making dominoes.

I'd like to see a picture of that chair Jesse, sounds like it would be worth viewing!

Thanks for the kind words manpower.  Here's a thread from the first time I made the chair that I now make with dominoes.  I'm working on a couple of new designs: a cafe style chair based on a U shaped lamination and a Maloof inspired dining chair.  I'm a little frustrated because the cafe chair just doesn't look right and the Maloof chair takes a huge amount of labor.