Biscuit cutters

[51]

Hi all. I will be trying my hand at using biscuits for butting some longish boards in the near future. I've never done it before and was wondering about the relative merits of the various methods.

So assuming a proper 'pro's biscuit cutter provides a moderately skilled nerd a 80% chance of doing an adequate job. What would be the percentage for a

1) good quality biscuit cutter mounted in a router? 2) good quality biscuit cutter mounted in a cheap power drill?

And can you point me at a good quality biscuit cutting blade?

I thank you.

Arthur

[Andy Hall]

It provides a better chance than that.

Reasonable. Not the best way, but since the objective is vertical alignment as opposed to how long the slot is, this is a reasonable method.

Trend make a cutter for doing this, as do most other suppliers.

Forget it. This is a bodge.

You can go for the router approach or can buy a good quality biscuit jointing machine for under £100, so it's not worth messing about with bodges.

Lamello.

[Cicero]

======================= A source:

also do a good range but at much higher prices.

You should be quite successful using one of these cutters in a router particularly if it's a 'soft start' router.

I assume that you mean a hand-held power drill. I think a biscuit cutter in such a power drill (cheap or otherwise) could be quite dangerous.

I use biscuit cutters in my bench drill without any danger but there is a limit to the kind of cuts that can be made. Worth a try if you have a bench drill.

Cic.

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[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Aldi for the biscuit jointer at 23GBP.

[dom]

OMFG - if it's anything like the biscuit jointer that Netto were doing at the same price point, it qualifies as the worst tool ever made. I got mine as far as my van outside, had a look at the comedy "biscuit cutter mounted on a grinder" and the slide made out of meccano - and got my money back immediately. That thing had absolutely no chance of doing anything other than tearing a rough hole in timber. Tools as badly made as that serve no useful function whatsoever.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

But you never tried it.

Makes a perfect clean slot.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

The proof is in the pudding. :-P

[John Rumm]

Well, if yor boards have flat square edges to start with then your odds ought to be closer to 100%

If the router is in a table, then the odds of success are almost as good. However it is a slower more error prone way of doing it. Doing it with a router freehand is far less desireable and much less likely to give you a decent result.

(router based solutions all suffer the same problem - the router cutter is the wrong radius to cut the slot in a single plunge operation. Hence you have to plunge and then slide the router to elongate the slot. How much you elongate is variable with biscuit size, and the resulting sot does not match the profile of the biscuit in the way it would had it have been cut with the full size blade)

That sounds like a recipe for loosing fingers or worse!

[Guy King]

The message from "51" contains these words:

Spend the dosh, get a proper jointer. They're not expensive and a cheap one will do fine for infrequent work - it'll certainly be a lot better than farting about with accessories.

[51]

Thanks all.

If I am joining 1" thick oak (4" wide) will No. 10 biscuits do?

Arthur

[Andy Hall]

I would use No. 20

[Andy Dingley]

Long grain I hope, otherwise it'll be weak whatever you do. If it's an end grain butt, then scarf it.

Get a real biscuit jointer. The Ferm one is decent and dirt cheap. Biscuiting is quick and easy, or else you're doing it wrong. A router might work for edge jointing but it's slow and you can't do T joints. A power drill has no hope.

I never use #10 biscuits. It's either #0 to fit in the space (width vs. T-jointed board thickness is the usual limit), or #20. After all, they're all the same thickness.

Get a couple of cheap glue bottles from Axminster too. Coupel of quid each, biscuit nozzle and roller. Use builder's cheap PVA by the gallon and thin it a little for the slot bottle. Glue the slots, not the biscuits.

[Cicero]

=========================== A No 10 biscuit is about 20mm at its widest point ( 55mm long) so you'll have only 10mm in each board. Although No 20 is not much bigger at 25mm at the widest point ( 60mm long) it certainly looks much bigger. I would agree with the No 20 for the greater gluing area.

Cic.

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[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

HaHaHaHa! the ferm one a decent BJ,your having a laugh surely? I was having a look at the ferm model a couple of weeks before I bought the Aldi model and the Aldi one actually looks better and performs well. Screwfix dropped it from their sales, wonder why?

[Guy King]

The message from "The3rd Earl Of Derby" contains these words:

Well, I've got one and it works fine.