Sam Murdoch
11-02-2012, 5:19 PM
I installed a Eucalyptus top to a window seat today with a solid wood edge. I brought the panels to the job ready with the Festool Domino slots. The lengths of the solid wood trim were cut to size and applied in the field because I had an inside and an outside miter and there was no way to accurately do this work in the shop. Once the wood edges were fitted I then slotted with the domino to match the preslotted tops.
The reason for this post is to share 2 comments and a neat little trick that I discovered today that I humbly share in case anyone else gets themselves in the same predicament.
244625
1) Using the dominos I was able to glue these wood edges in place without using any clamps or nails or screws or packing tape. I just pushed them into place and that was all that was needed. The dominos are tight enough in the thickness to hold perfectly well. In this case I had slightly elongated the slots in the top but not in the wood edge to enable me to have some adjustment left to right to tighten my joints. I know of no other tool that would have allowed such easy and accurate results without clamps or fastenings.
2) You can see in the photo that I added a slight break (a quirk) in the top edge of the top and the solid wood. I like the look of this detail and use it very nearly in every situation of a stain grade solid wood edge being applied to a panel. The practical advantage is that if the wood edge is ever so slightly not flush with the mating panel it is not noticeable.
However in this case both legs of the inside corner were actually too much not flush. They were both just a bit but noticeably below flush with the seat top. I guess as I was plunging for the domino on the very ends of my pieces while working off my miter saw stand I wasn't working as flat as I needed to be. Anyway the result was unacceptable. So what to do?
Here is the neat trick: With the domino set into the slot of the wood edge I took my sharp knife and scored a line through the top edge of the domino right up against the face of the wood. Then I used my knife to shave off the upper face of the domino to the scored line. I really just took off a feather of the domino in effect making the domino thinner than the slot in the panel. BUT then I set my sliver of the domino into the slot in the panel. When I set the wood edge to the seat top panel the domino that was made thinner was now pushed up by the sliver in the bottom of the slot and both flushed up nicely. Same done to the other corner piece and now both solid wood edges were flush to the tops and aligned with each other. Easier to do than to write about and very worth the few minutes to make things perfect.
The reason for this post is to share 2 comments and a neat little trick that I discovered today that I humbly share in case anyone else gets themselves in the same predicament.
244625
1) Using the dominos I was able to glue these wood edges in place without using any clamps or nails or screws or packing tape. I just pushed them into place and that was all that was needed. The dominos are tight enough in the thickness to hold perfectly well. In this case I had slightly elongated the slots in the top but not in the wood edge to enable me to have some adjustment left to right to tighten my joints. I know of no other tool that would have allowed such easy and accurate results without clamps or fastenings.
2) You can see in the photo that I added a slight break (a quirk) in the top edge of the top and the solid wood. I like the look of this detail and use it very nearly in every situation of a stain grade solid wood edge being applied to a panel. The practical advantage is that if the wood edge is ever so slightly not flush with the mating panel it is not noticeable.
However in this case both legs of the inside corner were actually too much not flush. They were both just a bit but noticeably below flush with the seat top. I guess as I was plunging for the domino on the very ends of my pieces while working off my miter saw stand I wasn't working as flat as I needed to be. Anyway the result was unacceptable. So what to do?
Here is the neat trick: With the domino set into the slot of the wood edge I took my sharp knife and scored a line through the top edge of the domino right up against the face of the wood. Then I used my knife to shave off the upper face of the domino to the scored line. I really just took off a feather of the domino in effect making the domino thinner than the slot in the panel. BUT then I set my sliver of the domino into the slot in the panel. When I set the wood edge to the seat top panel the domino that was made thinner was now pushed up by the sliver in the bottom of the slot and both flushed up nicely. Same done to the other corner piece and now both solid wood edges were flush to the tops and aligned with each other. Easier to do than to write about and very worth the few minutes to make things perfect.