Does anyone use biscuit joiners anymore?

[Philipp Jaindl]

Over here Lamello (Buiscuits) are a standard bit of kit for assembly at Customers Houses, if you have to join anything together on the go its usually done with biscuits, its fast, gives you a bit of leeway in adjusting the fit of the joint and the Jointer is really small and portable and somewhat versatile with all the different biscuits and being able to cut a groove if necessary.

That said im not really fond of them in any other role, in the shop just about anything else is better. Everything refering to Commercial shops, may be different for the hobbyists.

[Bill Adamsen]

I too use biscuits (and also the domino) for a number of shop and on-site tasks. Most if not all have been mentioned already. A key site specific task is providing strength (and alignment) to a mitered casing (as Paul shows with the Hartford clamp above). Another is attaching face frames to carcases (though I have switched to Domino for much of that). Last is adding trim to engineered material for shelves ... it excels for that job. I also use it for attaching boards of the same dimension. Like others I have found that Lamello makes the best biscuits (most reliably dimensioned for thickness) and I buy only theirs. A few years ago I replaced the cord on my PC557 with a Festool cord so that I could use it more readily with the integrated hose/cord.

BiscuitMachine.jpg

[Jacob Mac]

I’m watching the night stand series Darrel Pearl has on the Wood Whisperer guild. He uses biscuits everywhere on that project. If they’re good enough for him, they’re more than good enough for me.

I bought a dewalt years ago, but it had serious alignment issues that I could never entirely sort out. I put it on a shelf and haven’t used it in a long time. But I think I’m going to try and calibrate it to get it working. If nothing else, maybe get one that isn’t a lemon.