New "domino killer" dowel guide for drills
- Thread starter smorgasbord
- Start date
mino
Member
The only cost from those that is *specific* to dowelling is the 8mm drilling bit plus a workbench enabling easy vertical clamping. Both of which are multi-use as well.
Also, I do not advise the full shebang LR32 kit. What one really needs is the plate and /optionally/ the distancing/joining bars. Rest is entirely optional and often it is better to direct the money to a TSO PG set for the same function ..
The versatility of the LR32 system is such I am truly sad Festool - as usual - is utterly incapable to market it. It is literally the poor man's CNC for cabinetry. Yet they do not even bundle the LR32 rail instead of the basic one.. Nor do they suggest to pair it with their PGs ..
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smorgasbord
Member
OK, but that's just silly to include the whole cost of a 3D printer, since it'll be used for lots of other projects. Jeez.
He also released this short:
Which I think is crazy. Dowels are strong and cheap, but the downside is you need accuracy in both X & Y dimensions. Without any kind of distance rods (paddles/cross-stops on the Domino), how does he space the second and third set of dowels to be the same distance on both boards? This is where the side to side room in dominos really shines.
And, why does anyone need three dowels at each section? That's just silly.
I'd rather get the Woodpeckers Cam-A-Line jig, which lets you set the dowel spacing within the group, as well as can use rods to set and lock-in the distance for long-spaced holes.
onocoffee
Member
I agree. Bundling the LR-32 rail instead of the plain 1400 FS/2 would probably result in more LR-32 sales. It is a missed opportunity.
luvmytoolz
Member
The cost of the kit and the 2.4m rail is a few coffees short of $2k, bundling the rail would be a killer move, but then again they may think it will eat into their LR-32 margins if they did.
For me if the rail was bundled, even though it would be a higher cost, that would definitely incentivise me to buy the kit.
mino
Member
By "bundling" I meant the sets where you buy a TS with a rail at a "bundle" price. Anyone who got their initial rail with the saw would have an LR32 rail at home and wonder what those holes are for ..
onocoffee
Member
This came across my feed today and it says it was released four weeks ago, which I believe predates the Trinity announcement.
Looks like we're all suckers because the Domino is lesset than the dowel...
Looks like we're all suckers because the Domino is lesset than the dowel...
You are filling up your tool with dust and wood chips which will limit its performance and lifespan
Cheese
Member
This whole thing is getting weirder and weirder every day.
Mini Me
Member
Can you please expand on that for me please.
smorgasbord
Member
Yeah, when it came out, I was wondering why he was doing that comparison. Turns out it was to help him sell his dowel hole maker thingie.
Here's the kind of thing that Dominos are also good for:
I do something similar with my zero clearance inserts for my chopsaw and tablesaw crosscut sled.
luvmytoolz
Member
I dunno, I'd take that with a grain of salt.
As most of my material is reclaimed, I've pulled apart more furniture and doors than I can count, and I've never been able to cleanly pull apart things that had Domino tenons properly glued in without a lot of breakage.
Things constructed with dowels though I've always generally found far easier to disassemble even when glued, with very minimal damage as a result. Sometimes just simply "rocking" the joint is all that's required.
mino
Member
How many dowels though?
A proper application of dowels is with an industrial doweling machine, seeing a dowel every 32mm (the distance is not arbitrary, 20 mm is too close, 40 mm is needlessly far). I call this "full shebang dowelling" given how rare this is in the hobby space.
TLDR:
"Full shebang" dowels are an unquestionably strongest option for weak-core-strong-surface engineered materials. They are still good for hardwood and passable for softwood.
"Full shebang" dominoes, and flat floating tenons in general, are one of the strongest option for wood materials, they are passable for engineered materials, good-enough for non-load-bearing joints and most load-bearing ones yet will yield to dowels for maximum strength at a given joint length.
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Because the "proper" application of a dowel sees a dowel every 32mm. Basically what LR32 allows you. That makes for about 16-18 dowels connecting your average cabinet side to a bottom/top. It may sound overkill, but it is not. With weak engineered materials such is necessary to transfer the forces into the weak core of the board that is glue-able while the strong surface is glue-proof. Modern flat-packed furniture needs not apply. Even if glued on assembly.
I have broken down many of such properly made carcasses, our apartment was full of such stuff made in 1940s to 1980s . Beyond cutting through the dowels, or steam-freeing the piece which an engineered board carcass has no chance to survive itself, there is no way one can take such a carcass apart without major damage in the joint area. Nada.
A dowel is an industrial production technology and done properly provides for the strongest joints *in engineered surface materials* like laminated chipboard or MDF that is possible with such materials. This is due to the physics of those materials having a weak core and strong surfaces. "Full shebang" dowels are still OK-ish but will cede to dominoes for softwood use. Softwood has no strong surface the dowel can use for leverage making the domino superior. This is important to understand as it can be only partially mitigated by using longer dowels.
Sure. You can use dominoes across the joint in a similar fashion. Yet, such joint will be weaker in chipboard with dominoes. With dowels the mortise takes less width allowing you to place *more* dowels in same length of a joint. Why this is important is that the dowel itself is not the weak point. The board core is. The unweakened part of it specifically. The more of the board you disturb by the wider dominoes, the weaker it becomes. That is what makes dowels the ultimate-strength floating tenon joint: You can use the most of them while disturbing the least of the stock with holes.
Now, you ask, why bother if a couple dominoes on the ends of the board will do? And THAT is exactly the point. DOMINO is *not* an industrial production tool, it is NOT meant to provide the strongest joint possible. Instead it is an artisan tool to provide a good-enough joint at minimal labour expenditure.
Above is why I wrote earlier that the idea of three dowels at one place is correct - for you need as many of them to get a similar effect a single domino provides. DD40 has two which is enough for hardwood but is weaker than a single domino and fails in softwood or chipboard, necessitating at least two plunges on each sides, 8 dowels total, for a secure joint.
The CTM long jigs - Packard noted - or the LR32 approach I prefer - are designed to mimic the industrial dowel joint. The 17 dowels per joint joint. An overkill for most uses, yet essential for some - think a free-ended butt-jointed chipboard shelf.
That is why I know that when/if I get the DOMINO, I will keep my jig. Precisely to be able to make super-strong carcasses from low quality materials. I still love the DOMINO I had rented a couple times for what it is meant for: efficiently making artisanal hardwood furniture and engineered material carcasses that do not rely on load-bearing joints for strength.
EDIT: rephrased a bit
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luvmytoolz
Member
@mino Absolutely a cabinet with dowels every 32mm would be amazingly strong, but I've never actually pulled anything apart made commercially or by craftspeople that had dowels at 32mm centres, let alone right along the joint in cabinets. I wonder if perhaps this is a more European style of furniture making? It's definitely not common here based on the variety of stuff I've pulled apart ranging from the late 1800's to now.
Probably the best I've seen is every 100mm or so. A lot of 70's mitre joint cabinets I've pulled apart just used biscuits every 100mm or so roughly. Pretty easy to break down, but strong enough for use I guess.
Having 4 kids I always built stuff like an elephant would do hand stands on it!
Probably the best I've seen is every 100mm or so. A lot of 70's mitre joint cabinets I've pulled apart just used biscuits every 100mm or so roughly. Pretty easy to break down, but strong enough for use I guess.
Having 4 kids I always built stuff like an elephant would do hand stands on it!
Mini Me
Member
Soak the joint in boiling water and it will come apart depending of course on the glue type. I have done it a few times but then I only use a no brand white glue.
luvmytoolz
Member
I think cheap white glue, or at least the stuff I was buying from McEwans (blast from the past!) gets a worse rap than it should.
Among other furniture I've built, some kids chairs I built decades ago and subject to frequent abuse haven't even developed a wobble.
mino
Member
Well, I grew up in a centrally planned 'socialist' economy .. sub-standard stuff - like dowels every 96 mm - was simply not manufactured. It was considered a waste of good material .. to make purposely flimsy furniture. A waste which it is.
One needs to remember that dowels 'replaced' machined box joints in industrial production .. and that mainly because those are impossible or problematic with engineered materials.
You are correct. Today (last 40+ years), commercial furniture is mostly flat-packed and is a "consumable good" designed to break apart. Poor dowels have nothing to do with that..
My point is mainly that when people talk of dowels for joinery in a carcass context, they should be looking at the full-row implementation and usage with weak-core-strong-surface engineered stock. As that is what they are designed for.
For anything else, dowels are but a 'cheap' substitute for a floating tenon. These days cheap only so long as one's labour is "free".
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The DF is designed with the use of the dust extraction. Four reasons came to mind why long-term use of the machine without dust extraction is not advisable:
1) The 4mm bit is more prone to break if the mortise is full of chips
2) When a large bit (8mm or 10mm) is used, the chips in the mortise and binding would increase the chance of movement and an imperfect mortise in a handheld operation (esp. for the vertical plunges)
3) Cleaning the mortises (as in the case.of dowellimg) becomes necessary after the milling, which is extra work if dust extraction is not used, and
4) The lifespan of the smaller bits is negatively affected.
luvmytoolz
Member
The Domino is one of the few tools I never use without dust extraction no matter what size cutter I'm using.
Packard
Member
The one advantage of dowels vs. dominoes, and the reason the kitchen cabinet manufacturers and the KD furniture manufacturers associations did not include dominoes in their testing, is that there are fully automated dowel drilling and assembly machines available for dowels and none for dominoes.
So transitioning from dowel construction to automated dowel construction is simpler than from dominoes to dowels.
For very small shops the dominoes hold an edge, but for larger ones they get blown away.
So transitioning from dowel construction to automated dowel construction is simpler than from dominoes to dowels.
For very small shops the dominoes hold an edge, but for larger ones they get blown away.
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