Cutting slots with a biscuit jointer

[Scott Schwake]

I watched Norm cut slots in the edges of a plywood cabinet with a router to accept a face frame with biscuits. I was just wondering if it would be possible to do this with a biscuit jointer instead of buying a slot bit for the router?

[Greg Robbins]

Sure! I do it all the time.

[gary Zimmel]

Thats the way I do mine also.

Norm I believe does it that wat to speed things up a bit.

[Steven Wilson]

If I wanted a slot down the entire edge then I'd use the router. If I wanted to align the face frame with indvidually milled slots then I would use the biscuit jointer. Norms methods looks a lot easier to align.

[Scott Schwake]

If I wanted a slot down the entire edge then I'd use the router.

That's my intention, any reason you couldn't/wouldn't use a biscuit jointer to make the continuous slot?

[Bruce Wrenn]

You would have to be pressing the BJ in at the same time as moving it. With MLCS selling a 5/32 slot cutter bit for $16.00, with free delivery, I would be hard pressed to not use the router.

[Bart Leetch]

You can real easily make a continuous slot with a biscuit joiner. I did it to join 2 pieces of 1" plywood for the sub straight of my bench & used a piece of 1/4" plywood to join the two pieces. I ran the biscuit joiner down the edge then flipped the plywood over & ran it down the edge again to center the slot. It worked great.:D

[Norman Pyles]

I saw Norm do that too. I really can't see how this is any better, than just making a individual slot for each biscuit with the joiner.

[George Bregar]

IIRC he just groved the whole edge to eliminate alignment issues because of the size of the face frame and piece.