Dominos for dining room chairs?

[Jeff Monson]

I'm going to challange my ww skills and try my hand at building a dining room chair, and hopefully if all goes well, make a set for our dining room.

I'm looking for some input from other domino users. The chair is all loose
tennon construction, so are dominos suited for this task? Also will using the domino cutter be quicker and more accurate than cutting the tenon's with a router?

[John Shuk]

A good wwing friend who I consider very skilled used a domino to make a full set of chairs. They have held up well for the last year or so.

[Bob Childress]

I've seen a couple of WIPs of some beautiful chairs made using Dominos. I'll see if I can find one for you. :)

[Jeff Monson]

I've seen a couple of WIPs of some beautiful chairs made using Dominos. I'll see if I can find one for you. :)


Bob, that would be great, I found 1 jig on the festool owners group for legs but would like to see some others.

[Thomas S Stockton]

I just finished a set of chairs using loose tenons. I used a multi router because I prefer a single large tenon over a couple of dominos. A domino would be way faster than doing with a router and homemade jigs.
I think if you could fit two of the 8x50's in each rail it should be strong enough, I would make a sample of each method you plan on using and then beat on them and see how they hold up. Another thing that adds a fair amount of strength to a chair is corner blocks in all the corners. One of the problems with the joint tests I see in magazines like Finewoodworking is that they just test breaking strength and don't simulate things that happen in the real world like rocking motions and such. Most of what I've seen in chairs that have failed are loose joints rather than joints that have fractured.
The picture is a set of 8 chairs I'm currently putting finish on, They are loosely based on the dining chairs from the Thorsen house in Berkeley CA, designed by Greene and Greene. The finished photo is from a previous version of chair I did a number of years ago.
The materials are mahogany, ebony,white oak, cherry, mother of pearl, abalone and sterling silver.
Tom

[David DeCristoforo]

Do you have kids? Do they lean back in their chairs? Then forget it. Otherwise, they will probably work as well as any other joinery for chairs. I've often used "floating tenons" for chair joinery and they were not much deeper than a domino and they worked fine. With chairs it's more about the glue than the joinery. As long as the glue holds tight, the chair will remain solid. Once the glue bond is broken, it does not much matter about the joinery. The chair will "wobble" until it is re-glued.

[Dave Avery]

Jeff,

I did 10 a while back..... see link below. Domino was a big time saver. As to longevity, we'll find out...... Best. Dave.


http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=100592

[John Stevens]

Just for what it's worth, can't say from personal experience, but Thomas Stender (http://www.stenderdesign.com/NewFiles/seating.html) wrote in a book that he used biscuits for joining chairs and had yet to hear a complaint from a customer.

Regards,

John

[Prashun Patel]

FWW did an article comparing the strength of the different joints. I was surprised to learn that the bridle and halflap joints outperformed the M&T which outperformed loose tenons.

You can greatly improve the strength of these latter joints by making the tenons as deep as possible and making them as wide as possible so's to maximize the side-face gluing surfaces and to minimize the endgrain gluing surfaces.

[george wilson]

I agree with David. Loose tenons are not as strong as real ones. A chair is the most stressed piece of furniture out there. As much trouble as chairs are to make,I would never try to take a shortcut in the mortise and tenon construction. If they fail,you are stuck with a lot of useless work.

In proper chair construction in the 18th.C.,tenons went all the way through the legs on the back sides of the chair.They were angled so that the grain of the wood ran parallel to the tenons. When you look at the backs of these chairs,the tenons look way off center because of this,but the makers knew what thay were doing. They were also pinned through,usually with square dowels,as well as glued.

Real old doors were also tenoned all the way through. You can see the ends of the tenons on the sides of the doors. This is what proper woodworking should be,and not these short cuts we have today.Sorry if I have stepped on anyone's toes,but that is the true way of working,if you want your work to become antiques too.

[Mike Henderson]

There's no question that regular mortise and tenon will be the strongest joint. But commercial chairs were made with two 7/16" dowels (on each side) holding the chair seat to the chair back and they generally held up for a decent amount of time. On a chair, any joint will eventually fail where the seat meets the back (if the chair is used).

So match your joinery to the expected life of the chair. If you think the chair will be used for maybe 20 years and then thrown away, I'd use dowels. Domino or loose tenons would be the next step up, and regular M&T would be the best.

If you decide to go with dowels or Domino or loose tenon, and the joint fails, you can saw the joint with a thin saw, drill out the {dowel, Domino, loose tenon} and replace it to get another 20 or so more years out of the chair.

[Added note: The corner blocks add significant strength to the chair. You should make robust corner blocks and attach them well.]

Mike

[I can't imagine using biscuits to attach a seat to the chair back. That's going a bit too far.]

[george wilson]

At my age,I am asking do you want to leave a legacy? If you put your name on your work,then do it right. Of course,I am in the business of being a craftsman,so it is more important to me than to someone who is a banker,and does woodworking as a hobby. However,the artifacts we have from old civilizations tell us as much about them as written documents do,in spite of what "tunnel vision" social historians may tell us.

[Wade Lippman]

I made a set with dowels a few years ago and they have withstood daily use by 2 teenage boys. Dominoes would be even better. So yeah, they will be fine.

[george wilson]

He who ignores history is doomed to make the same mistakes.This is true. I've seen plenty of old doweled chairs coming apart. Dowels do not have the glue surface area,or wood strength of tenons. It depends upon how long you want your chairs to last.In England,revival style antique chairs were made by the thousands.They didn't have authentic joints,though,and turn up in auctions loose as a goose.They used to bring in old English furniture in auction houses around here that came out of old hotels(I guess) in England,For several years,they could be bought cheap back in the 70's. Superficially,they looked nice. I saw a guy,about 175# sit on one,and he ended up on the floor!! I'm just saying that if I went to the trouble to make a set of chairs,I'd try to make them so they would become future family heirlooms. Chairs,for what you get when you are done,are more trouble to make than other furniture.

[Chris Padilla]

At my age,I am asking do you want to leave a legacy? If you put your name on your work,then do it right.

Keep in mind that the stuff that has survived for 100 years+ for us to look at was "high end" stuff for the time. "Garbage" or "Other methods" that may not have worked out so well didn't survive for us to look at. One may get the impression that the stuff we look at today from long ago was the norm...it was not. Technologies and methodologies also change and so we have different ways to skin cats.

This does not make certain methods "right" or "wrong"...just different. It is a bit condescending to claim a certain method is the only one way to do something....

[george wilson]

I qualified my statement to say"If you want the chairs to become heirlooms",so it wasn't really condescending,nor meant to be. The truth is the truth,though. The chairs might last 10 years,or more. But,they aren't going to become future antiques,nor is much of the furniture we buy in stores today.

Whether today or 200 years ago,wood is wood,and short cuts do not constitute having another way to skin a cat.This forum should be driven by the need to give and receive the best possible advice,don't you think?

Dominos are simply not as strong as real joinery. They are just quicker ways to get instant gratification,not the best and most enduring results.That's all I am saying. They are not a legitimate other way to skin a cat.

People are obviously free to do their work in any way they please. But,they shouldn't begin to think that these shortcut methods are the very best way to do woodworking. If you want a quick job,and do not care if the piece lasts,that's fine. Don't be mislead,though. If the piece is important to you,do it right. Am I wrong?

[Jeff Monson]

Thomas and Dave,

Your chairs are both REALLY nice, I appreciate all the great feedback.
I'm going to make my 1st one out of pine to cut down on mistake costs :rolleyes: and also use a plan to get the hang of it, if all goes well I would like to design something myself.

[Prashun Patel]

My humble $.02:

Glue technology, like finishing technology has greatly improved over time. The need for an M&T joint is PROBABLY reduced today vis-a-vis a century ago. If you'd like yr work to live for a century, but want to employ the convenience of 'modern' joinery tools, then use the best glue, and longer and thicker tenons or dowels out of high quality stock.

Don't get me wrong, I admire M&T as much as the next guy; but my appreciation is for the craftsmanship it demands (and might imply for the rest of the piece's construction). But I do think it's poss to make an heirloom using newer technology as well.

[george wilson]

Glue lines still crack eventually. Don't be deluded that you can get by without proper joinery. That would be a mistake. Relying upon glue isn't the right way to do the best work.Appreciation for craftsmanship must include appreciation for proper construction,too.Routing out a mortise in the side rail of a chair to receive a domino only weakens that rail.It makes it easier for a crack to start and split the rail open.

Someone mentioned Fine Woodworking's unrealistic joint tests. I would agree on this basis: The repeated rocking back and forth in a joint like a chair,is gradually going to start the glue line cracking. That is different from simply suddenly squeezing a joint till it fails. When that glue line starts to crack,it is soon all over for the joint that relies upon glue solely. Glue should not be what you are relying on. There is nothing better than the mechanical strength,cross pinned in,of a real mortise and tennon joint to make the joint long lasting.

There is so much badly made furniture being sold out there,I wonder,and the curators wonder,I've heard them say so,if our society will leave any antiques,except for plastic drink bottles,which last 700 years in landfills. I don't want to contribute to this sad state of affairs,and I would hope that woodworkers who should know better,would not want to,either.

[Cody Colston]

Well, the OP said: "I'm looking for some input from other domino users. The chair is all loose tennon construction, so are dominos suited for this task? Also will using the domino cutter be quicker and more accurate than cutting the tenon's with a router? "

Sounds like he is intent on using dominos and wanted to hear from others who had used them. So, all this discussion around whether they are strong enough for chairs is really just academic.

I've observed that on woodworking forums you can ask the time and frequently get told how to build a watch. ;)

[Mike Henderson]

There was an article in an early issue of FWW by Hoadley (did I spell that right), an expert on wood. He did a study of the failure of joints. What he found is that the wood the glue is attached to fails, not the glue itself. So I doubt if there's any magic glue that's going to give you a lot longer life in a chair joint. The joint just gets too much stress, especially in chairs without stretchers or arms.

Let me comment again about the need for corner blocks. I've seen lots of old chairs with joints that completely failed but the chair was still being used because the corner blocks were holding it together. You could "rock" on a dining room chair.

I'm sure George has seen the same thing - and lots of other people.

Mike

[Hoadley's research would indicate that the joint with the most contact area will last the longest.]

[Chris Padilla]

I've observed that on woodworking forums you can ask the time and frequently get told how to build a watch. ;)

C'mon, Cody, this is true on ANY forum! :) I frequenty have water-cooler discussions with my colleagues and work and it is amazing the paths our conversations take...I think it is just natural and human nature. Okay, back on topic.... :D

My personal and uniformed opinion is that dominos would work just fine but I honestly don't know how long it would last and neither does anyone else here know. We'll broach this topic again in 100 years and then we'll know.

As Mike alluded to, there can be many reasons a chair over time fails: the glue, the joint, and the wood can all be stressed in different or unexpected ways and over time fail. Stress comes in the form of use, environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, water, sun, bugs, magnetic fields, lava, whatever...) and perhaps most importantly: TIME. Everything has a time limit on it....

[george wilson]

True,corner blocks definitely help. What I am trying to explain is that mortising into the end grain of a relatively narrow rail leaves only a small amount of wood around that mortise . That's where the failure will start,unless the domino,which cannot be as wide as the rail,and is therefore much smaller,and weaker than it should be,fails first.

The corner blocks were the ONLY thing holding those old English chairs together. Problem is,their screws can only be so deep,because the wood they are screwing into was only so thick. So,once their glue lines cracked,the chairs were still loose as a goose until the screws wobbled enough to finally let go.

These new products like dominos and biscuits,that seduce people into believing that they are good ways of doing work,really do much more harm than good. I have used biscuits myself,on things I've made "quick and dirty",for the house. But I do not delude myself into thinking that it was the best way to do the job. That kind of misinformation being drilled into people's heads is very harmful to the future of good woodworking.

[Jeff Monson]

Well, the OP said: "I'm looking for some input from other domino users. The chair is all loose tennon construction, so are dominos suited for this task? Also will using the domino cutter be quicker and more accurate than cutting the tenon's with a router? "

Sounds like he is intent on using dominos and wanted to hear from others who had used them. So, all this discussion around whether they are strong enough for chairs is really just academic.

I've observed that on woodworking forums you can ask the time and frequently get told how to build a watch. ;)

Amen to that

Mike, your point of corner blocks is very good and the chair plan I have calls for these blocks and they are very good size.

[Mark Hulette]

If you don't have a looming deadline (I know how the SWMBO-induced timelines can be) I'd make a sample out of pine as you suggest and live with it for a while and give it a real test drive for a bit.

At least you'll know how it feels and get an idea if it starts to rack quickly!

Good luck- I've got a Domino and have been looking at Jeff Miller's book thinking about adapting his ideas to the loose tenon.

[george wilson]

Amen to that?,well,hopefully someone may benefit from reading the posts.

[Dave Avery]

Glue lines still crack eventually. Don't be deluded that you can get by without proper joinery. That would be a mistake. Relying upon glue isn't the right way to do the best work.Appreciation for craftsmanship must include appreciation for proper construction,too.Routing out a mortise in the side rail of a chair to receive a domino only weakens that rail.It makes it easier for a crack to start and split the rail open.

Someone mentioned Fine Woodworking's unrealistic joint tests. I would agree on this basis: The repeated rocking back and forth in a joint like a chair,is gradually going to start the glue line cracking. That is different from simply suddenly squeezing a joint till it fails. When thast glue line starts to crack,it is soon all over for the joint that relies upon glue solely. Glue should not be what you are relying on. There is nothing better than the mechanical strength,cross pinned in,of a real mortise and tennon joint to make the joint long lasting.

There is so much badly made furniture being sold out there,I wonder,and the curators wonder,I've heard them say so,if our society will leave any antiques,except for plastic drink bottles,which last 700 years in landfills. I don't want to contribute to this sad state of affairs,and I would hope that woodworkers who should know better,would not want to,either.

Hi George,

I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that loose tenons are "the best" way to make a chair. Unless everyone here is expected to have heirloom furniture all around the house, you have to cut corners somewhere on some items. I have a big job, 3 children, and a wife that I like to spend time with. Time for me is EVERYTHING. While I can afford to pay $1,600 per Moser chair - times 10 - I chose to pay $1,000 in materials and spend ~100 hours. Making traditional M&T joints to similar tolerances as Domino's - at my skill level - would have taken at twice as long or more without appreciably increasing the chair life. At 100 hours it was beginning to become less than "fun". At 200 hours it would have been pure drudgery. So while you're right, pinned traditional M&T joints are better than Domino's, not everyone wants or needs to build the best possible piece of furniture all the time. Best. Dave.

[Mike Henderson]

Hi George,

I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that loose tenons are "the best" way to make a chair. Unless everyone here is expected to have heirloom furniture all around the house, you have to cut corners somewhere on some items. I have a big job, 3 children, and a wife that I like to spend time with. Time for me is EVERYTHING. While I can afford to pay $1,600 per Moser chair - times 10 - I chose to pay $1,000 in materials and spend ~100 hours. Making traditional M&T joints to similar tolerances as Domino's - at my skill level - would have taken at twice as long or more without appreciably increasing the chair life. At 100 hours it was beginning to become less than "fun". At 200 hours it would have been pure drudgery. So while you're right, pinned traditional M&T joints are better than Domino's, not everyone wants or needs to build the best possible piece of furniture all the time. Best. Dave.
In addition to the time to make ten chairs, it gets really boring (for me) to make ten chairs. Doing the same thing over and over is not very creative or enjoyable - it's just a chore.

There's a joke about the woodworker who was selling a dining room chair at a fair for $300. A customer came in and really liked the chair.

"I'd like eight of those. How much for the package?"

"That'll be $3,000 for eight" replied the woodworker.

After thinking that over, the customer said, "$300 for one but $3,000 for eight? How does that add up?"

"Well," said the woodworker "The first one was fun."

Mike

[J. Z. Guest]

My vote is that Dominos will be fine. One thing I like about our modern joinery tools is that they generally ensure a good joint fit, which is the hardest part of making hand-cut joinery.

Another thing to consider is that even though the Domino is super-expensive, this is one project that would pay it off right away. High quality dining room chairs are quite expensive. Heck, even low quality ones that are joined with only hardware are expensive!

Reading this thread, another thought occurred to me: M&T is not the ideal joint for a chair. Dovetail is. Then, when/if the glue fails, one is still good to go.

Another viewpoint: What if we accept that there is so much stress on the joint that it is eventually GOING to move? What about using a means of joinery that has a bit of flex to it? In an old Fine Woodworking article, I think it was in relation to dowel joinery and why it fails, the author said he tried silicone adhesive with this reasoning. Don't remember how it turned out.

How about pocket screws without glue? Then, when they loosen up, just re-tighten the screws? The screw holes would need to strip out before the joint would fail in any other manner.

[george wilson]

Jeremy,men figured out the best way to make chairs hundreds of years ago. How you intend to dovetail them,I'm not sure,but,if that would have been the best way,they would have done it that way,the market being competetive for them just as it is today. Except that the clients were a lot more savvy that your average one is today.

I am not saying that everything has to be done the same way as it was hundreds of years ago.I don't even make 18th.C. furniture for myself. But,certain ways are better. Shortcuts are not the same thing as doing the best work. Correct joinery can be applied to the most modern designs.

I understand Dave's point that everyone doesn't want to make the very best furniture all the time. I agree,I don't either,especially if it's a rush job your wife wants in a hurry.I used biscuits to join together a large table's top by Thanksgiving. Though I don't think for an instant that it's better than spline joints. I did put plenty of biscuits in,at least.

What I hope doesn't happen,but am afraid it already has happened,is that people get it into their heads that these gadgets for simplifying woodworking become accepted as gospel. People start thinking that they are the best and true way to do work.They are not. Glue may be "improved",which is not really correct in all aspects of application,but glue is still not perfect. It can still crack if stressed.Some of these modern glues,like Ca,and epoxys will not stand the test of time. Making correct joints is still the best thing to do,and that needs to be remembered.Screws are not the right answer,either,especially if screwed into end grain..

[Chris Padilla]

In addition to the time to make ten chairs, it gets really boring (for me) to make ten chairs. Doing the same thing over and over is not very creative or enjoyable - it's just a chore.

There's a joke about the woodworker who was selling a dining room chair at a fair for $300. A customer came in and really liked the chair.

"I'd like eight of those. How much for the package?"

"That'll be $3,000 for eight" replied the woodworker.

After thinking that over, the customer said, "$300 for one but $3,000 for eight? How does that add up?"

"Well," said the woodworker "The first one was fun."

Mike


LOL! Okay, that made my day! :) :D :D

[M. A. Espinoza]

Why not just use hide glue with the Domino?

At least if the joints fail in the future it won't be a complete waste.

[Jonathan Spool]

Although I am not a chair maker, and recognize through commercial chair failures in my own home, The joinery techniques used a hundred years ago were in relation to the adhesives that they had available. I would think that if a joinery technique could be simplefied due to the use of superior glues, there should be no reason to expect any pre-mature failure.
Seems to me that I have seen some "Z" chairs made with modern epoxies that defy my visual logic, yet they have held up to various tests. Naturally the chair would require proper engineering in order to withstand daily abuse.

[Cody Colston]

Those M&T joints they used 200 years ago were pinned because those Masters evidently realized that the glue joint would fail eventually. Pinning the joint gave it a mechanical connection that held after the glue failed, even though pinning actually weakens the M&T.

I don't intend to ever purchase a Domino, as I prefer traditional M&T joints, but who is to say that chairs made with Dominos won't be around 200 years from now...at least some of them.

A lot more of those chairs made by the Masters failed than survived. Not all of the furniture made then was the best it could be, either. Just like today, there was the finely crafted pieces for those who could afford them (mainly the merchant class) and lesser pieces for the less affluent.

Personally, I believe that any cross-grain joint is eventually headed for failure...it's just a matter of time. While the Domino-joined, PVA and Epoxy glued joints may be more difficult to repair, they are repairable. When the joints fail, someone will have to decide if the chair has enough intrinsic value to be worth the effort...just like today.

[D-Alan Grogg]

I think it's a bit premature to state with certainty whether a chair using Domino joinery will last 100 or more years.

Most likely, it depends on the quality of design, materials, and construction. A properly designed Domino joint will be at least as strong and durable as a similarly designed MT joint. BTW, according to the latest FWW joint test, a pinned joint was actually weaker than an unpinned joint.

[Terry Fogarty]

In the last 3 years I have made stacks of chairs using the Domino (with epoxied corner blocks) and so far they have all held up.

Below is a demo chair I made using the Domino(the completed chair has corner blocks)

It’s only my opinion, but the Domino is a gift from the woodworking gods for chair makers:)

[Vince Shriver]

In proper chair construction in the 18th.C.,tenons went all the way through the legs on the back sides of the chair.They were angled so that the grain of the wood ran parallel to the tenons. When you look at the backs of these chairs,the tenons look way off center because of this,but the makers knew what thay were doing. They were also pinned through,usually with square dowels,as well as glued.


George, I can't picture what you're saying here. How can the grain of the wood in the rail (between two legs) run parallel to the gain in the legs? Horizontal grain going into vertical grain, I don't picture what you're saying. Did the gain in the legs run parallel to the floor?

[Paul Murphy]

I just finished a set of chairs using loose tenons. I used a multi router because I prefer a single large tenon over a couple of dominos. A domino would be way faster than doing with a router and homemade jigs.
I think if you could fit two of the 8x50's in each rail it should be strong enough, I would make a sample of each method you plan on using and then beat on them and see how they hold up. Another thing that adds a fair amount of strength to a chair is corner blocks in all the corners. One of the problems with the joint tests I see in magazines like Finewoodworking is that they just test breaking strength and don't simulate things that happen in the real world like rocking motions and such. Most of what I've seen in chairs that have failed are loose joints rather than joints that have fractured.
The picture is a set of 8 chairs I'm currently putting finish on, They are loosely based on the dining chairs from the Thorsen house in Berkeley CA, designed by Greene and Greene. The finished photo is from a previous version of chair I did a number of years ago.
The materials are mahogany, ebony,white oak, cherry, mother of pearl, abalone and sterling silver.
Tom

Thomas, those chairs are beautiful! I have been working up the courage to try making a set of chairs, but have never found exactly the right style to actually get me started. Your take on the Greene and Greene style is as elegant as anything I’ve seen. I’m out of excuses now…

[Jonathan Spool]

Heres a good example of a chair made utilizing Dominos and modern adhsives. Hope I'm allowed to post the link??
http://www.festoolusa.com/Web_files/Domino_WCM_zigzag.pdf
The last page has a few guys standing on the chair!

[Chris Padilla]

In the last 3 years I have made stacks of chairs using the Domino (with epoxied corner blocks) and so far they have all held up.

Below is a demo chair I made using the Domino(the completed chair has corner blocks)

It’s only my opinion, but the Domino is a gift from the woodworking gods for chair makers:)

Very nice, Terry! Mahogony?

[Terry Fogarty]

Very nice, Terry! Mahogony?

Thanks Chris. Its Eastern Mahogany with Red Gum Back splats. The splats are 10mm thick and fit into the three different Domino plunge settings. I made it for a wood show to demonstrate how easy and effective the Domino is when it comes to chair making. I love it:)