Making dominos for outdoor project

[Nick561]

I needed some dominos for my grill table build.  I am building the table out of ceder and only had the beech dominos. I have read that these don't do good outdoors. I took a ceder 2x4 and ripped strips down to 10mm tall by 24mm wide. I then ran them though the router with a round over bit matched up to a real domino.  After those were done I cross cut them down to 50mm.
They came out well and saved me 50 bucks or so for 20 minutes worth of work 

[attachimg=1][attachimg=2][attachimg=3][attachimg=4][attachimg=5]

 

[HarveyWildes]

I made a bunch of dominos a while back.  I ran a glue relief slot down the center, so it took me longer than it took you.  I figured that with time figured in, it was only marginally less expensive than the Festool dominos.  Here are my reasons for making my own:
(1) To get a size that my local Woodcraft doesn't carry.  Usually this means a wide size.
(2) To use a specific wood species.
I don't get as much time as I would like in my shop, so I buy most of my dominos.

Seems a little odd that water would soak into a well-glued (say Titebond III), hidden joint enough to affect the Beech structurally, but you would certainly be hedging your bets with the cedar.

 

[ear3]

Nice work.  I'm currently designing a cedar bench for my house, so this might be a good option given that I otherwise have no need for the Sipo tenons.

Theoretically I suppose one could even make the dominoes wider and use the wider (or widest) mortise settings as you would any other floating tenon.

 

[Nick561]

Yes you could. They were super easy to make and I used a off cut from the project so no extra cost and minimal time invested

 

[Svar]

I ran a glue relief slot down the center

You can do glue grooves with finger joint bit (not full depth of course).

 

[marty schlosser]

Nick,

  I, too, have made slip tenons for my Domino-made mortises, but question the strength of the wood species you've selected for this application.

  Yes, I appreciate that if one were to use traditional mortise and tenon joinery methods, the tenons would be made of the same species as the stretchers... so I'm assuming yours are cedar.  But when one has the opportunity to use a stronger material, then why wouldn't one?  There are other wood species which offer considerably greater strength, while also providing anti-rotting characteristics (white oak comes immediately to mind), which would be a much better choice.  Here's what wikipedia says about it: White oak has tyloses that give the wood a closed cellular structure, making it water- and rot-resistant. Because of this characteristic, white oak is used by coopers to make wine and whiskey barrels as the wood resists leaking. It has also been used in construction, shipbuilding, agricultural implements, and in the interior finishing of houses.

  Hope this helps for future projects.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Marty, what do you think about the different expansion contraction rates when using different species? A M&T joint is already disadvantaged in that the grain of the parts runs perpendicular.

I don't know how to suss that out but my gut says to stay with the same species.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Nice work.  I'm currently designing a cedar bench for my house, so this might be a good option given that I otherwise have no need for the Sipo tenons.

Theoretically I suppose one could even make the dominoes wider and use the wider (or widest) mortise settings as you would any other floating tenon.

Beyond the widest single setting you can make two or more mortises side by wide to produce a continuous mortise/slot as long as you want.