Biscuit vs. Domino Joinery

[Rick Potter]

OOPS.

color my face red

Guess I need to justify my new Jessem dowel jig.

[Mike Cutler]

No need to justify a good doweling jig.
I've repaired many turn of the century doors through the years, and after each one, I look at doweling jigs. I never bought one, but should have 20 years ago.
A dowel is easily a 100 year joint.

[Patrick Walsh]

For laminations and glue up I never use them. For a long mitered joint in say a wood counter I’d go for a large stopped spline. But dominoes will do just fine probably just don’t put like 3 in in 24”.

I’ve built some huge stuff laminating big heavy long boards. Proper material prep goes a long long way. I have never struggled working alone to get things glued up. Just have to have a good system breath deep, stay calm and work smart.

I don’t care much for the domino or the biscuit joiner or dowels. But that’s Just my opinion clearly it’s not popular and that’s ok with me. I do however use all three in my work regularly as I’m a employee and do for the most part what I’m told. From what I’ve seen for the life expectancy of the average piece someone is paying most of us to build these days any of the above is probably sufficient. I have to build a bunch of church altar furniture in the near future and I will be using tradition mortis and tenon as it’s not intended to go in a dumpster like a kitchen in 20 years or some trendy piece of furniture your wife wants.

One thing I have noticed myself included is people make statements like and interject hard fast oppinions like “this is the way I do it, and then argue some superior or inferior way of doing it and what is right or wrong”. In some cases they might be right but who cares. You gotta figure out what’s right for you and ignore the chatter. Generally we are trying to have fun right. Some if I take pleasure in pain, some of us just like a finished product. Some can be happy with imperfections, some wanna break stuff over imperfections and or can never actually enjoy the piece or be satisfied with having built it the result of imperfection. Only you know where you fit.

If your having a hard time aligning your boards I’d make sure your stock is laser flat, not kinda or almost flat. Next I’d make sure you bench is also laser flat as when you lay your clamps down it might affect things, next make sure your clamps are clean and not covered in globs of glue. I tend to start at one end and work my way across the board, I’ll get a end clamped then make say a 12-18” jump to the next clamp and get it good. Work backwards filling in. If I have issues I can cut the furthest out clamp free and use the board as a lever to get the joint just so as I tighten the clamp using fingers to check for perfect alignment. Don’t bother trying to glue more than two boards together at a time. Glue dries fast, how important is a good result to you....

Good technique and planing and preparation means I have never needed any of the above.

But if none of that works for you both machines will work but they also will not insure a perfect glue up. In my experience if anything they hinder perfection. It’s weird sometimes I find it easier to get things aligned more reliably repeatedly with a biscuit joiner. Other times the domino. Not sure what that’s about, as others say each has a place. You gotta just build a bunch of crap with both and you will intuitively start to know what one you wanna use. However a biscuit is not a replacement for a tenon. And again any of them will in theory work for alignment..

[Bruce Lowekamp]

The problem with dowels, for me, is alignment if you use more than one. If one hole is just a bit out of place you can't get the dowels to fit. With biscuits and dominoes the mortise is just a little bit wide so if one is a little out of place it will still fit.

The factory made furniture is made by machine so the dowel holes fit.

Mike

What I like about dominoes is the adjustable width. You can make a narrow one that aligns precisely like a dowel or you can make wider ones that are a bit more forgiving. I've never done more than two of the narrow ones per board....

Bruce

[Curt Harms]

I don't have a domino, I do have a P-C biscuit joiner. I was making a technique error early on which caused joint misalignment. I didn't keep the face of the machine exactly perpendicular to the work face so the biscuit would be at a very slight angle. When two pieces came together there was a slight misalignment. Not very much but enough to notice/feel. When I worked on that the joints were better/more flush.

[Mark e Kessler]

I didn’t read the whole thread so maybe the below has been mentioned but biscuits and Dominos essentially will do the same thing but excel in certain areas, I have only ever used either as a professional cabinet maker and furniture maker as an alignment aid and rarely use glue in the slot/on the biscuit/domino. I personally never found biscuits to be that strong.

As far as a biscuit joiner goes owning a business with 5-7 employees I had quite a few from cheap ones to several Lamello top 10 and I can tell you without a doubt the Lamello is the best of the bunch and worth the money, it’s been a while so maybe the lower cost brands have caught up.

I have found that for miter joints I prefer the biscuit over domino if anything, seams to allow for some tweaking/adjustment whereas the domino really locks it in place and is unforgiving

Other tip with biscuits, if you are doing a thin top say 3/4” or under (or really any thickness and you prefer to use glue on the biscuit) be sure to place the slot low, below the mid point. In the umpteen thousands of biscuits placed in my lifetime i have seen a lot, one thing that can happen is the biscuit can swell from the glue and you end up with a football shaped witness mark on your top, early in my career I even had a callback once or twice due to this. I have even seen telegraphing when not using glue. I also found that the Lamello brand biscuits were superior than the others for consistency and didn’t seem to swell as much if at all.

As far as slots diminishing the strength of an edge glue joint, in theory probably due to less surface area but for all practical terms I say no. Now a domino on a end grain joint like a m+t I would say is stronger than biscuits, like I said earlier I have never found biscuits to be that strong but I have only really uses biscuits and dominos for alignment.

Mk

[Edwin Santos]

OOPS.

color my face red

Guess I need to justify my new Jessem dowel jig.

The Jessem dowel jig is an excellent tool that far exceeded my expectations. I have never experienced a dowel misalignment problem using that jig, and I have done rows of dowels as long as maybe 15 or 20 dowels spaced perhaps 6" apart.

I use dowels very often when face gluing just to register the parts and prevent the slipping and sliding that happens during the glue up, often right when you turn your back. My workbench was a glue up of three sheets. Two 1/4" dowels per sheet kept them in alignment while I glued up with a lot of cauls, everything stayed aligned. In this case, the dowels are not for strength or joinery, just to register the parts.
Where the Jessem jig struggles a little is when you need to install dowels in the field of the work, far from the edge, and it does not lend itself well to angled or curved work, but other than that, it is excellent IMO.

[Patrick Walsh]

Took these pictures today as I just happened to end up doing some edge glue ups.. Before anyone saiz yeah the boards are on 60” long I say I do the same thing with a 12’ board.

It took me all of 10 minutes to mill this stuff up from 5/4 to 1” and be ready for clamps. My bench is perfectly flat almost as good as a surface plate

Wee bit of glue smeared with my finger.

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The result, perfect like actually perfect. Good material prep goes a long way but that should be a given. It took me maybe 90 seconds to put these in clamps ok 2 minutes.

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And another same as above,

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And here they are in clamps drying. You don’t need to leave them overnight, doesn’t hurt but...

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Here they are out of clamps with pretty much zero need For anything than a quick run over with the number four or as most of us would do the orbital.

I ended up taking these down to .875 so one more trip over the jointer then through the planer. I always plan my glue ups this way but honestly normally laminations are good enough out of clams I could just send em through the planer flipping them..

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It’s really only as complicated as you make it. Anything for alignment imop is just a hinderance. With dominoes or biscuits you can’t cut the last clamp free and lift on board or push it down to get perfect alignment.

Tip is don’t tighten your clamps all the way as you go. Tighten them just enough to hold as you move onto the next clamp. Then when the whole thing is in clamps carefully go back and tighten them all.

And wipe your dam glue how else do you know how shitty a job you did..