Originally Posted by
Derek Cohen
Mike, I find this interesting. So many sold their biscuit joiners and purchased a domino. Obviously they think that they do the same thing and that dominos are better than biscuits.
Well, I don't. I think that they do different things and have strengths and weaknesses which compliment each other. So I have a DeWalt joiner and a Festool Domino 500.
Have you attempted to join mitred ends with a domino? It would poke a hole through the sides of 3/4" boards and thinner. Now a biscuit is long and low, like a spline. Ideal.
Want to align boards in a panel? Dominos are overkill. No need to mortice that deeply. The extra strength is unnecessary - it's just alignment. The biscuit is ideal.
Regards from Perth
Derek
For mitered ends of boards I use a 5/32 slot cutter in my router table and a ramp where I push the mitered end into the slot cutter. I mostly use FF biscuits for those miters. You can see my setup here, scroll down a few pictures. I have ramps for four sides, six sides and eight sides.
To align boards, I mostly use cauls. I got turned off to biscuits as alignment devices after a friend of mine (who used them often) miscalculated and when he trimmed the panel cut through a biscuit and had it showing on the end. I decided I'd find another way to align boards in a glue up and wound up with cauls.
[Side note] for small things, I often use the 4mm dominoes. I've used them occasionally for miters. I put the domino in high on the miter and do a test on scrap to make sure I won't go through the board (if I recall, they go 10mm into the board, and on a miter they're going on the diagonal so you could even use them on 10mm wood). The advantage of the 4mm domino is less setup than my router table and ramp.
Mike
[Back when I bought my DeWalt biscuit joiner it did not have an option for cutting for an FF biscuit. Only the PC joiner had that. And you had to change the cutter to cut for an FF biscuit on the PC.]
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 05-13-2020 at 11:30 PM.
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