Joinery for older shaky hands

[Vince Re]

I've developed a bit of a tremor in both hands as I age...it's not terrible, but it makes precision work very frustrating. When I was younger, I enjoyed cutting M&T joints, dovetails and so forth by hand - now, I just get frustrated and destroy a lot of wood.

Little by little, I've switched over to power tools for this sort of thing. With a jig, a router table and so on, I can do most of the simple joinery I want to do. I've tried biscuits and a cheap dual-spindle doweling joiner, but I haven't been happy with either one - not sure if it's the tool or me, but even with a lot of time adjusting the tools, I rarely get strong "spot-on" joints this way.

That has me looking for a better mechanical solution, and a few folks suggested the Festool Domino. Everything I read about it seems positive, except the price seems crazy to me - the small 500 is about $1200, and the larger 700 model is close to $1700 last I looked. I've also considered a better dual-spindle joiner - something like the Mafel, but it's also crazy expensive.

I like the look of fancy through tenons, so I've also looked at a few power mortisers, but it's another big and expensive thing to add to my small shop that's hard to justify.

Recently, I had the idea that a completely different alternative would be to invest in a CNC for the joinery I want to do. It's probably more expensive than the mortiser or a Domino, but seems to me that it would open the door to virtually any type of fancy joinery I might want to do, at the cost of being more time consuming to set up and run. Still, seems to me that no matter how bad my tremors get, so long as I can still use a computer, I can pretty much cut anything I can imagine with an accuracy down to about .001".

What do you guys think?

[Cameron Wood]

I bit the bullet a few years ago and bought a Domino. It's been very useful- tables, gates, benches, and quite fast relative to other joinery.

I sometimes make tenons from the same wood as the project, especially for outdoor. The machine is somewhat high strung, and only one crash landing on the floor from being scrap, so I'm very careful and unplug the power cord from the machine often so I don't trip on it.

Also have a bench top mortiser, which I like, but it doesn't do everything, and is heavy-not really portable. I think many of these are bought and not used. The mortises are also on the rough side, especially through mortises where the chisel exits the stock, so hand work is still needed.

[John TenEyck]

I have a CNC and rarely use it for furniture joinery for one-off projects. I do use it to make finger joint and dovetail drawers, using a vertical fence installed through the table. No matter what you want to do you need to create a drawing and then the toolpaths. Even something simple might take 30 minutes to do that. Now multiply that by a couple of dozen joints in a project, for example, and you have a lot of time invested before you've cut anything. Change anything along the way and you have to adjust the drawings and toolpaths accordingly. If you want to make multiples of a project the CNC is a very useful tool, for one-offs, not so much, unless it's something very difficult to do by hand methods. I'm not suggesting you can't use a CNC to do one-off projects, only that it's not time efficient and there are easier ways. Read on.

If you are looking for a solution for M&T joints, especially loose tenon joints, you might consider building one of my Horizontal Router Mortisers. You can make one for maybe $100 plus the cost of a mid sized fixed base router. It's fast and easy to use, very precise, very safe, and tremors will have no impact on the results. If you'd rather not build one, I'm happy to sell you one ready to go for well less than half the price of the smaller Domino.

Anyway, have a look: https://sites.google.com/view/jteney...ser?authuser=1

And the one I sell:



Whatever direction you go, I hope you continue to enjoy woodworking for a good long time.

John

[Keegan Shields]

Vince,

You might also consider a Pantorouter. Kind of a mid point between the traditional mortiser/tenon and going full CNC.

The benefit is you can cut both the mortise and tenon on the same machine. Lots of joint options.

[Will Mullendore]

The DowelMax jig is an extremely nice piece of kit for the price. After I got mine, I decided I had no use for a domino. It’s quick to set up and very accurate.

Highly recommended.

[Jim Becker]

I think that of all the tools in the Festool range, the Domino is the one tool that even folks who "hate" the brand can benefit from. It just works and is very precise. Yes, it's not inexpensive, but it's a well built machine and a game changer for many folks, both for more efficient work and to permit great precision when it can be difficult to achieve otherwise. Your hand challenges kinda fit into that category, too, Vince.

I own the DF700 as most of my use has been for heavier joints. I typically use 10, 12 and 14 mm tenon sizes and have also used the 14mm connectors. You can be "darn precise" with this tool, too. While I own the Seneca adapter to be able to cut the small size tenons that the DF500 does, I honestly have not felt the need "to date". It's nice having the option, however. If I found myself using the smaller sizes with any kind of frequency, I'd buck up and buy the smaller machine, too, for lower weight and more "fit for purpose" comfort. I buy tenon stock that I use the most in the 750mm sticks for lower cost and just cut to the desired length on the bandsaw.

Do note you must use an extractor with the Domino tools. They put out a lot of "stuff" and it needs to be pulled out of the mortise and removed from the machine.

[John TenEyck]

Vince,

You might also consider a Pantorouter. Kind of a mid point between the traditional mortiser/tenon and going full CNC.

The benefit is you can cut both the mortise and tenon on the same machine. Lots of joint options.

As you can with my horizontal router mortiser.

John

[Vince Re]

Thanks for all the replies so far...though I'm not sure I'm any closer to a solution.

I appreciate the comments on using what amounts to a homemade jig to create a horizontal slot mortiser and floating tenons. I think the part I was missing was the idea of cutting slots in both pieces and then using floating tenons to join them together. Instead, I was picturing cutting the mortises with a router and the tenons on the table saw...that's pretty much what I do now, and rounding the corners of the tenon by hand with a chisel is a bit hit-or-miss for me these days. A little research turned up a few cool mortising jig designs in addition to the ones mentioned in here. I may try building one of these before going any further - that seems like a workable solution, and I'm sure I even have a spare router laying around I could use for it.

For doweling, I have a few different jigs as well as a bargain dual spindle joiner. I won't mention the brand, but the joiner is frustrating because it has enough slop in the design that it's almost always off a few thirty-seconds of an inch in every dimension, especially in harder woods. I don't have the DowelMax jig that was mentioned, but I do have the JessEm...it's probably about my best option today, though I'm not sure dowels are the strongest solution for some of the projects I do...lately, I've been building custom hardwood doors, for instance, and a row of dowels seems like a poor substitute for a beefy M&T joint.

The one thing that's still a bit of a mystery to me is the CNC approach - I don't have a good feel for what the CNC workflow would be. I have a background in software and programming, so I'm not afraid of the tech, I just wonder if I'm trading the joy of working with wood for working with a computer...it might look nice, but doesn't seem particularly gratifying to watch some computer program carve out the designs you can't do by hand anymore. These days, I might sell a piece or two, but I do it because I enjoy it, not to earn a living...last thing I want to do is add something that feels like drudgery - even if the results are good, that'll still feel frustrating.

Someone suggested the Shaper Origin thing as sort of a halfway CNC. It seems like an interesting approach, but again very expensive and it still seems to take a certain amount of dexterity to get good results. I'd consider trying one, but it looks like the nearest dealer is about 200 miles away from me. It would be wonderful if some of these companies offered rental programs where we could try out something new without necessarily committing thousands of dollars to it.

And of course, I haven't ruled out the Domino...other than the price, I can't really find anyone that says anything bad about them, so perhaps I'll just suck it up and make the investment.

Thanks again for everyone that offered advice!

[Keegan Shields]

No not the Shaper Origin... the Pantorouter. Check it out - no software required.

https://www.pantorouter.com/

[Terry Therneau]

From all I've read, the Jessem dowling jig and the DowelMax are a pretty evenly matched. I used a DowelMax for several years, now passed on to my son; I now have a Festool domino. I'm not sure how the domino would do with tremor; but if you can put a tri-square on a mark accurately and hold it down on that spot you should be okay.

[Michael Burnside]

I have the Jessem Dowling Jig and it is great. I also have the Festool Domino which, love or hate, is a phenomenal tool that I use far and away the most. Hate on the price all you want, but it works perfectly every time, it is built very well, comes with an outstanding warranty and does the job quickly and accurately. IMHO the price is on par with performance and quality.

Those are the extremes of the budget for tools I've used extensively to make fine furniture and would recommend. John's horizontal router looks cool as well, but I've not use anything like that so I'll let others chime in with more experience.

[andy bessette]

Have you given up caffeine entirely?

[Will Mullendore]

Have you given up caffeine entirely?

We’re trying to come up with realistic options here.

[Wes Grass]

we’re trying to come up with realistic options here.

lol!!!!!!!!!

[Will Mullendore]

For doweling, I have a few different jigs as well as a bargain dual spindle joiner. I won't mention the brand, but the joiner is frustrating because it has enough slop in the design that it's almost always off a few thirty-seconds of an inch in every dimension, especially in harder woods. I don't have the DowelMax jig that was mentioned, but I do have the JessEm...it's probably about my best option today, though I'm not sure dowels are the strongest solution for some of the projects I do...lately, I've been building custom hardwood doors, for instance, and a row of dowels seems like a poor substitute for a beefy M&T joint.

And of course, I haven't ruled out the Domino...other than the price, I can't really find anyone that says anything bad about them, so perhaps I'll just suck it up and make the investment.

Thanks again for everyone that offered advice!

What is a dowel if not a floating tenon? It’s mechanically no different than a Domino. I’m sure the Domino is a great tool, but there’s very little a Domino can do that a good dowel joint can’t.

As far as the strength goes, some tests are showing a dowel/floating tenon as stronger than an equivalent mortise/tenon joint. https://canadianwoodworking.com/tech...a-dowel-joint/