drawer joinery -- Festool Domino vs. dovetails

[David Wadstrup]

Hoping for a little advice... For those of you who have used the Festool Domino:

What do you prefer and why? Dominos or Dovetails?

I should say that appearance is not a consideration for me, so dovetails shouldn't win out on that score. I guess I'm mainly interested to hear whether dovetails are considerably stronger or more appropriate than Dominos. What do you think?

Thanks!

[Mike Nguyen]

When I first got my Incra LS Positioner, I did all the drawers for my family room entertainment built-in using half blind dovetail because I want to learn how to make drawers using dovetails. When I replaced about 70 metal sides drawers through out the house I used box joint and 1/2" baltic birch sides because dovetail and plywood do not go together well. These 70 drawers took me a long time to route and glue up. But after getting the Festool Domino, all my drawers for the garage and sister dental office are made using dominos because it's much faster and easier. What I did was I routed a dado for all the sides and grooves for the drawer bottoms, glue up the drawers like you normally would, and then I plunge the domino on the sides, use a router to rout off the protruding tenons and then sand it smooth. I think the construction of drawers are strong enough that I would not worry about they fall apart.

Mike

[roger wiegand]

We had a former kitchen where the cabinet drawers were put together with dowels (about 1/inch along the corners of the boxes). Over the course of a decade most of these broke-- combined glue failures and the wood on the sides breaking around the dowel holes. I replaced them as they went with 13 mm baltic birch boxes with lock rabbet joints. None of these replacements ever showed the slightest sign of failure. Why would dominos be better than dowels?

I cut my solid wood drawer dovetails on a Leigh jig, it just doesn't take that long, especially when you're doing a whole run of parts so the setup time is amortized over many pieces.

[Mike Henderson]

The way Mike N describes his process should be plenty strong. I'd go with the dominoes.

Mike

[David Wadstrup]

Thanks for the replies so far!

I have seen people use Dominos in drawer box construction in two different ways:

The first, and to my mind, easiest way is cutting the Domino mortise into the end grain of the front and back pieces and into the edges of the sides. The Domino in this method therefore runs parallel to the front and back.

The second way is the way, unless I'm mistaken, that Mike N is describing. A rabbet is cut into the edges of the sides and the Domino mortise is cut THROUGH the backs and front into the end grain of the sides. The protruding Dominos are then trimmed flush. In this method the Domino runs perpendicular to the fronts and backs(Although, I suppose, you could flip the orientation and rabbet the fronts and backs and then cut the mortise through the sides.) It's essentially a pinned rabbet joint.

Can anyone tell me why one would be better than the other? The Domino-pinned rabbet version seems more difficult. It also leaves the end grain of the Domino visible. I imagine, though, that it might be preferable for some reason as I've seen this demonstrated on the internet a couple of times. Is it stronger?

[Chris Padilla]

Put it this way: They are both strong enough for drawers no matter which way you do it. My Domino has replace a few regular tools in my shop (biscuit cutter, mortiser, and my dado blade to name a few....)

[Mike Nguyen]

Hi David, the rabbets are cut into the edges of the sides and then the dominos are plunged through from the sides also. The reason why I rabbet the sides was I found it easier to line up when gluing together. I think in my case, I wanted to learn how to do drawers using different techniques but that 70 drawers of box joint really took a long time to finish and I found it especially hard to glue up box joint drawers when the drawers are big and taller than 10" high. My next drawer project will be going to Woodcraft, sign up a hand cut dovetail that Mike Henderson teaches and learn another technique

[Jim Dwight]

I've only seen a couple pictures of drawers done with Dominos but it appears that regardless of how you do it, you have an area where the plywood or wood drawer side is very narrow, like 1/4 inch or less. In solid wood, that small piece will break very easily because the long grain direction is 1/4 inch or less. With plywood, is should be a little stronger but still pretty weak. Dovetails, on the other hand, do not have weak areas like this. There is lots of long grain to long grain gluing area. I'm not arguing that Domino drawers will fall apart. I am just pointing out why dovetail drawers are stronger.

I use a very inexpensive Harbor Freight half blind jig with a Grizzly template guide on a stand about 6 inches high that also gives me longer supports for aligning the pieces. This jig stays set up with the extra pieces in a drawer that is part of the stand for the jig. I can easily cut dovetails in good plywood - like 1/2 Baltic birch. I usually do them for the front and back of the drawer. Once the jig is setup, it is very little time per joint. It is often necessary to reverse cut plywood but other than that, good plywood works well for dovetails.

I'd like to have a Domino but I will not use it for drawers if I get one. Drawers should be screwed together if you want something quick and dovetailed if you want something good. Dominos seem weaker than screws and dovetails without being really nice looking. The fact that they are not structurally good in this application may be clouding my judgment on appearance, however.

[Prashun Patel]

I have a Domino but also do some dovetailing.

Dominos make quick work of plywood boxes that will have a false front. On solid wood boxes, concealing the end grain on the sides means some kind of rabbet for me, which slows down the process.

The other nice thing about dovetailing is that it doesn't require much adding and subtracting of reveals and rabbets; you just build the fronts to the width of the opening and then plane down at the end as necessary. The math for drawer sides is forgiving anyway, since the depth of the back is variable, so I'm just extra liberal in accounting for the half-blind lips on the sides.

The best of both worlds for me is to be fancy on the front with dovetails, then Domino backs in between the sides (I mean a through-Domino drilled into the butted parts from the side). Because the back won't be seen, you don't have to do the back flush with the sides, you can inset it, which will alleviate some of the short grain concerns of having a domino to close to the edge.

[Jim Dwight]

A weaker joint for the back is very traditional. You pull on the front of the drawer so it sees the most stress. The back is relatively low stress. Even "nicer" furniture was often built with dado joints at back possibly with a few brads. Dominos are clearly at least that good.

[Martin Wasner]

A dovetail will hold with out any glue. Not real well, but it will. It's a mechanical joint. The whole reason for dovetails is once upon a time, the glue sucked. Nowadays, that's not really the case. The wood glue is pretty awesome. Personally, I like the look of dovetail drawers. Tough to beat in my opinion. If there's any longevity because of it, I think it's pretty negligible. The domino through the side will be plenty strong, so pretty much whatever you want it to look like is the correct answer. I'd guess the domino would be a bit faster, but I can't say by how much. Seems like a lot of screwing around, but I've got my system for dovetail drawers pretty well nailed.

[roger wiegand]

The whole reason for dovetails is once upon a time, the glue sucked.

Really? Hide glue was and still is much stronger than the wood it holds together, and for my money still beats "modern" glue for many, many (though not all) applications. I know of no reason to think that traditional hide glue ever "sucked".

[Martin Wasner]

Today's hide glue, or hide glue from a hundred years ago?

[Sam Murdoch]

I've decided that with the invention of ball bearing drawer slides and now the hugely upgraded Blum undermounts, and family, that dovetail construction is overkill for a drawer mounted on such slides. IMHO the slides take all the stress off the front joints.

If you like the look - by all means uses dovetails. I prefer dovetails (sometimes a sliding dovetail) that I hand cut for drawer boxes that will slide on wood to wood construction. I like dominos for ply drawers or 5 piece boxes that will get a finished front. Typically my production drawer boxes are of 5/8" stock. Mostly it is a production issue for me as I don't have a dovetail jig. In the rare instance that a client insists on dovetail boxes for their kitchen I buy them all made.

[Phil Thien]

I've decided that with the invention of ball bearing drawer slides and now the hugely upgraded Blum undermounts, and family, that dovetail construction is overkill for a drawer mounted on such slides. IMHO the slides take all the stress off the front joints.

That is a real good point. The original drawers in my kitchen were build on wood slides, and the resistance (with silverware and what-not) put a lot of stress on those drawer joints.

Now I'd use locking rebates and be done w/ it.