For me the joint cutting is the time consuming and tedious part of building a piece of furniture. I can sort of mindlessly square and smooth the pieces to be used in the furniture. But when it comes to actually getting the pieces together, that is where the important part happens. I've spent lots of time setting up routers and drill presses to cut mortises. And table saws with dado blades to cut tenons. And shoulder planes to fit. I think the Domino can eliminate this time consuming and tedious portion of furniture building so all you are left with is the pleasant part of making the individual pieces. I find the piece making sort of pleasant. Still have the finishing to make better and easier.
How much is it worth to cut out the difficult part of furniture making? But still have good, solid, strong, nice mortise and tenon jionts holding your nice piece of furniture together? I don't and won't use bisuict or pocket screws to hold my nice pieces of furniture together. The joints. I use biscuits for gluing together panels. Mortise and tenon or dovetails are the only ones I like and use on nice pieces of furniture.
You will still spend time making the piece of furniture. But it will all be productive time. No minutes and hours setting up and getting out and putting away routers and jigs to cut mortises. No putting the dado blade on the saw and test cutting to get the height just right for the tenon. This is not productive woodworking time. I get no joy out of setting up machines and doing test cuts. I want to do the real cuts. How much is it worth to eliminate all of the wasted setup time from your furniture making? My shop time is about 90% waste time now. If I could get that down to just 50% waste time, I would be much more productive. And I get some joy out of actually making a piece of furniture.
As Renowood says below, I think the hobbyist will benefit and appreciate the Domino the most. Hobby furniture making will be more fun, enjoyable, productive.
I have and occassionally use my cheap screaming shop vac. Only with ear plugs. It will work just fine with the Domino and some duct tape to hook up the hose. Actually none of my tools are loud since I always wear hearing protection. So I get no real benefit from the quiet shop vacs because my hearing protection reduces the sound level on all of them to easily tolerable.
Putting out an additional $250-$300 for a good and quiet
True. A trestle table and I would use big tenons and mortises and not be able to use the Domino. But I only plan to make about 1 trestle table in my life. Most big furniture is really a collection of smaller modules. Huge entertainment centers and bookcases are usually
3 or 4 pieces screwed together. Its hard to move from house to house huge pieces of furniture. For the few times in your life you make huge furniture, then you will have to come up with another way. But for the 99.99% of the other times, the Domino may be just perfect. When I buy stuff I try to get the thing appropriate for 99% of the time and cross the 1% bridge when I get to it. Kind of like the people who buy Hummer vehicles to commute in rush hour from their suburban home in San Diego to their downtown office. When the blizzard hits, they will be ready. But for the 99.999999999999999% of the non blizzard days in San Diego, its not a good choice.If your work requires you to make huge furniture a majority of the time, then the Domino probably is not for you. Most people's work do not require them to make huge furniture more than once or twice a lifetime.
How many big jobs are there that you do? Trestle table, not for the Domino. Headboard? I think the Domino would be fine for this since a headboard does not move. For most folks anyway. Bedroom drawer chests are big but the joinery of the casework is easily handled by the Domino. End tables, Domino. Couch, maybe not for the Domino. Entertainment centers and bookcases are many modules hooked together to form a big piece. Just casework mainly. Domino would be appropriate. Coffee table and benches, Domino would work. Smaller tables, Domino would work. Chairs, Domino should work. I'd say 95% of thee furniture in a house would easily be handled with the sort of small loose tenons the Domino uses. Entry doors of solid wood, the Domino would not be my choice.
But an addition that can do the job of almost all of the other tools so much faster and easier. I don't think the rest of the collection would get much use except for the rare instance of extra large or extra small work where the Domino is not appropriate.