All good reasons for buying the Domino I'd think. Assuming you are right about the Lamello, I wouldn't be comfortable joining legs and rails and such with a 1/4" biscuit depth. I don't *need* anything like that for edge gluing table tops and such, not needed imo. Pocket joints are fine for FF, but any where you would need/use a mortising machine, a Domino would seem the way to go. Your experience bears that out and if I were making my first cabinets, I'd be buying or saving up for one. Since I'm on closer to my last cabinet, I'll just get a drool cup and save my money for something more appropriate.
Yeah, I hear/read that all the time. I've done woodwork with no dust collection or dust masks for going on 60 years. When younger, I've done a ton of body work, sanding tons of body filler, not to mention dry wall w/o dust masks, (usually with a smoke hanging from my lips) and painting numerous cars and trucks with just a dust mask. If my lungs could talk they would be mostly cursing. Not recommending anyone do that, but I'm closing in on the end of my run and my lungs still work fine.
A side note, we bought a new sweeper a few years ago, and it has a HEPA filter on it. Absolutely worthless imo. Just another filter to clean. 70 years of sweeping rugs w/o one and no ill effects convinces me a lot of this stuff is salesman hype.
For me, I can use my shop vac and immediately stain/varnish with no effects, so whatever invisible fine particles are spewing forth means about nothing to me.
The EPA can kiss my dusty little butt. Too many little people with big government power forcing people to do things their way. I'm glad I'm not beginning my life where these little tyrants are controlling everything you do.
What one individual gets lucky getting by with, many others get and die early from lung cancer or other ailments...
While I'm no fan of the RPP, that wasn't the point so much as that the comparison drawn was to two markedly different product specifications and target markets explains much of the significant price differential; not that one is simply the same product as the other but over-priced.
FWIW variable speed is important if you use the vac attached to power tools and especially if you attach sanders. For the Festool sanders whose pad does not hang over the edge of the work high suction is a problem. With high suction the sander is more difficult to maneuver. On the flip side you need high suction for saws, routers, dominos, etc. FWIW also with a quiet vac you are more likely to use the vac with all of your tools that work with a vac. I own 5 Festool power tools, not counting the Festool vac. I never operate any of them with out the vac except for the drill. So when ever I operate any of my corded Festool tools, the vac automatically comes on. Typical Quiet HEPA certified vacs typically offer low noise so you are not tortured with the loud sound, automatic switching so that you only have to turn on the attached tool, variable speed to match sanding dust collection or high volume suction, and clean air exhaust. Clean air exhaust is important for your lungs and for your finishes. I have no second thoughts about sanding in close proximity to freshly stained or varnished pieces.
To sum it up, if you want to buy a vac that you will probably use more because of these features buy better quality. If none of the above is important to you then there are the ones they you find cheaply priced. You do have the option of having a better vac.
If the vac is not HEPA certified the filter is not guaranteed to prevent the particles that you are wanting to capture from escaping. The HEPA filters in my vac remain almost spotless, even after 8 years of use. The vast majority of the fine particles are captured by the primary disposable filter bag. As a result I never have to clean those final HEPA filters, or any filters. I take that back, about 9 months ago one of the bags broke and the HEPA filters did all of the work and and yo be cleaned that 1 time.
Suction strength is manually regulated. If you are sanding something like face frames or the edge of a board you want to increase suction as the sander pad extends over the edge of the work and dust can fall over the edge and there will be a big suction leak.
I have never used a Lamello but have heard nothing but high praises especially when compared to the common brands. I do use the domino for panel glue ups. Seldom are all the pieces perfectly flat and the ridged floating tenons that fit more tightly than biscuits work better with alignment of surfaces than biscuits IMHO. The floating tenons work so well, and not just for strength, I never dreamed what all I would use them for. Once clones of the Domino appear, and they certainly will, I suspect the plate joiners will disappear.
Finally a reason I'd want a Festool vac, never having to clean the filters. For the extra $500 though, I don't mind occasionally cleaning the filter. I usually do it each time I empty the 14 Gallon tank. My vac is also quiet enough I never consider not using it because of the noise, and no ear muffs needed. My 40 year old Shop Vac I hated to use because it required ear muffs or your ears would bleed. The main thing with the old shop vac was the high pitched scream. That is completely gone with the Ridged, so whatever noise it makes, it's simply not a problem at all.
The only small tool I attach a vac is my sander. The small hose to my sander has an air port that I can open if the vac works too hard, so two speeds isn't needed. I can't recall ever wanting to slow down a vac.
My recommendation remains spend the extra money on the spiral cutterhead planer or jointer rather than a Festool shop vac. I guess if your prime reason for buying a shop vac is keeping dust over 1 micron out of your lungs, get a Festool vac, or even better, look for work in a silicon valley clean room making computer chips or hard drives. Woodwork might be a little too risky for you.
I wondered if anyone made Domino clone. I certainly would be looking into getting a Domino if I were in the market. Jay Bates has a youtube video making a cabinet and he looks like he is using a domino. He makes pretty neat videos.
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Interesting watch even if you already have a domino...
I grinned through that and another of his video's. Took me back to building furniture with construction grade lumber. I was amused at the effort that went in to mounting the drawer slides too. ;~)
Jack wrote in news:naht3a$ddv$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
*Snip*
Would you spend an extra $5? That's about what generic filter bags for the WD1450 run. It keeps that filter nice and clean, and you only have to mess with them once in a while. They're not totally clean, as removing the bag leaves about 1/2 cup of dust scattered about but you don't have to clean the big filter.
I did put the dust diffuser/muffler on mine, and while it does help it's only a marginal muffling. The diffuser is more important, as that vacuum is set up with a marketing checkbox "can be used as leaf blower".
You remember correctly! For some strange reason, they quit making them abo ut 4+ years ago. I don't know what happened to them as the machine got som e great reviews and a double dowel system certainly has its strength. Oddl y, it was Freud that stopped, so there must have been some kind of copyrigh t or patent infringement.
But they are still around, and quite affordable. I have been tempted for y ears, especially since they offer 1/4" and 3/8" sizes on the bits for dowel s. Even a 1/4" striated dowel properly installed has quite a bit of holdin g power, but that 3/8" would be about as strong as I would need. And of co urse, there is always the option to take one bit out and use it as a single dowel machine.
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or
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(which is a great tool manufacturer located in Germany , and all tools made there)
The problem with the Mafell doweling machine... it even MORE expensive than the Domino, and not by a little bit, either.
No doubt thanks to you, I wouldn't consider the Mafell in light of the Domi no's performance.
That Triton sure looks interesting though from time to time.
Heck, I remember when dowel joints were considered great woodworking and a sign of craftsmanship. When I learned to lay up panels, we always did a fe w dowels per joint. I remember doing doweled miter joints on rail/stile co nstruction, too. Looks pretty old fashioned, now...
I thought it was a pretty good idea but you know how things don't pan out as they appear? Thinking about it, and this was long after I bought the Domino, I considered that a large percentage of my mortises are in the end of a narrow piece of wood. If the dowels are too far apart you can only drill one hole and then you give up the strength of two dowels which would also prevent the joint from rotating, like it would with only one dowel. Alternatively you could drill one hole and simply move the tool over and drill another hole closer. BUT that presents a fit problem, you must drill the mating holes exactly the same distance apart on the mating side of the joint.
And on top of that even if you use both bits to drill pairs of holes, alignment of mating holes is going to become an issue with the next set of holes and each after that. Aligning to a pencil mark is not going to be accurate enough with precise fitting dowels. This is OK with a plate joiner as the biscuit can slip back and forth a slight bit.
The Domino has a solution which I use on every one of my mating mortises. I cut one side as an exact fit mortice to fit the domino tenon and the opposite side mortice is cut slightly elongated, wiggle room. The bit simply swings slightly wider left and right when cutting on that setting. IIRC the smallest setting for an elongated mortice is about 3/16" wider than an exact fit. FWIW I never mate exact fit mortises together. The Domino has an indexing system to insure exact placement however the Festool reps explained that this is accurate as long as the internal adjustment on the side to side movement of the bit remains dead center. There is an eccentric adjustment, to compensate, on one of the indexing pins but I never use it.
Knowing that, I decided to not bother with exact fit mortices holes on both sides. This very reason may be why some Domino owners do not use their machines as much as I do. I don't expect the tool to always perform precisely as designed, due to normal wear or what ever, so I get to use it ever where I want with out alignment problems 10,000+ mortises later. Is that clear at a all? LOL
Yeah! I have one of those doweling jigs around here somewhere, I think. You know the one with a turret and probably sitting beside that one the self centering one. ;~)
I experienced similar problems with both that I mentioned above.
Not really. Lots of people making jigs of one kind or another. Something that does what the Domino does as conveniently and efficiently, not so much.
Some guy with engineering talent and a well equipped machine shop might have made an actual clone for his own use, but that's not something that the average hobbyist is going to pull off.
I might consider that. Do you have a link to the bags you use? They seem to be all over the place price wise. My old shop vac had only a paper bag filter, and a sponge filter for water pickup. Is that how these things work?
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