Festool Domino - Tricks & Tips?

[Tom]

I finally broke down and purchased a Domino, the smaller DF500 version. It should be here tomorrow. It'll mostly be used for M&T joinery in cabinets and case type furniture. I'm not into chair building as I don't have the "eye" for it.

I plan to play with it a bit before doing any serious work but thought that some of you Domino afficianados might have some hard-learned lessons from which I could benefit.

Any suggestions on how to use it to best effect would be appreciated.

Regards.

Tom

[Han]

Tom wrote in news: [e-mail]:

There are many, many videos on Youtube. Look at them, especially the festool-sponsored ones. I look at the Domino as a souped-up and sophisticated system to make biscuit-style and dowel-style joints. So alignment is crucial. In my experience the dominoes are just a hair oversized when used as is in the "tight" setting. Just sanding the flat areas and the side edges a tiny bit makes them fit better/easier.

[SonomaProducts.com]

t should be here tomorrow. It'll mostly be used for M&T joinery in cabinets= and case type furniture. I'm not into chair building as I don't have the "= eye" for it. I plan to play with it a bit before doing any serious work but= thought that some of you Domino afficianados might have some hard-learned = lessons from which I could benefit. Any suggestions on how to use it to bes= t effect would be appreciated. Regards. Tom

I usually play with it a bit before getting down to serious work. I cannot = however pass on any "hard" learned lessons... oh wait, you are talking abou= t a wood working tool. I thought you were talking about working your wood. = Sorry, wrong tool.

[Leon]

1. DO NOT reference cutting height from the bench top. Stated another way always use the fence to reference your cut and be sure the Domino base does not accidentally come in contact with the bench surface. This should be the practice when cutting biscuits slots with a plate joiner also.
2. Using the indexing pins to accurately index is almost too much trouble and difficult to calibrate perfectly for mating edges. Basically the left bin has to be in perfect registration with the right pin in relation to the cutter cutting width. I normally cut a wider slot/mortise and that allows me a bit of wiggle room. This has never been an issue once I adopted this method. YMMV and I suggest you try before taking my word for it. You may be perfectly happy with the results.
3. The assortment Domino kit is a pretty good deal that includes cutters for all the included set of domino's.
4. Be sure to use/attach some form of vac to clear out the mortises.

Most all of the above suggestions are not unique to this tool as they are a good suggestion for plate joiner also. If you are familiar with a plate joiner/biscuit cutter you will have this tool down in a snap. There are really no surprises.

[Dave]

On Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:20:43 -0500, Tom

The first and best suggestion I can give you is to join the Festool Owners Group.

[Dave]

On Wed, 01 Aug 2012 10:20:43 -0500, Tom

The second suggestion I can offer is to have a set of Dominos that are slightly sanded for dry fitting purposes. You'll find that dry fitting with regular unsanded Dominos will give you a great deal of trouble getting pieces apart.

[joeljcarver]

When I join a end grain to side grain (like a door frame, for instance), I cut the mortise just to fit the domino, and I cut the side grain mortise a bit wider in case I need to adjust the alignment.

[Tom]

Thanks to those who provided their thoughts, especially our apparently randy colleague at Sonoma products.

Tried it out Monday putting together some frames for shed doors. Just joining some twobys, not jointed, planed or otherwise squared.

Observations:

1. Amazingly clean. If I had routed those mortises I would have shovelled up a bunch of chips even with the vac hooked up to the router. With the Domino, almost no residue escaped.

1. Fast. 80 mortises took about 30 minutes after the locations were marked out.

2. Fairly accurate. I only had to open out 4 mortises to get a dry fit, on all others the sanded tenons slipped right in. This despite timber that was NOT "4 square".

A thought:

At the bottoms of the door frames I was joining 2X4 stlies to a 2X6 rail. I used 3 10mm dominos on each side spaced across the 5 1/2 inches. Afterwards I realised that I could have cut overlapping Domino mortises to create a 3 or 3 1/2 single hole, then cut a tenon from pine to fit. More gluing surface, fewer interior shoulders, maybe stronger in sheer due to solid long grain material in tenon. Hmm. Probably overkill for this application.

Anyway, thanks.

Tom