Thread: Do I need a Domino? / What do you use yours for?

Originally Posted by Evanism

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The argument of "tradition" is also eliminated when considering the range of chisel mortisers sold over the years.

I guess if your customers are prepared to pay for "tradition" bust out the tenon saw and the chisels.

Mine aren't.

For alignment reasons, spend the $ and get some Front Line clamps. They work a treat.

Now I own the original Leigh FMT jig, a Powermatic hollow chisel morticer and have a dedicated TS with a dado head. I also have some high quality chisels and shoulder planes for work on tenons. That's some investment, to say nothing of the Tormek grinder I use to get the blades super-sharp.

I also own the small domino and a half-share in it's bigger brother. I turn to the Dominos all the time. Period. The slight drop in strength of the loose tenon is more than made up for by poor-fitting M & Ts that are hand cut. (I'd really like to see say the hand-cut tenon work on say rails for an 8 seater table. )

If I am really worried about a strong join, I can do a double M & T on the Leigh jig. That's super-accurate in terms of fit etc but I rarely bother. Double dominoes is faster and almost as strong. Certainly stronger than many M & Ts cut by novices.

All this talk about old houses.... Today, chippies frame walls in days using airless nail guns. The trusses for the rooves arrive on-site, pre-made and gang nailed at the factory. I don't see any home owners objecting to any of that.

You know you can pick up wooden shoulder planes for a song at every other garage or clearance sale. Reason? Old technology. Enough said.

In the words of the immortal Yoda, "wait, there is another".

After I wrote my comments above I remembered woodgears.ca with Mathias and his PantoRouter.

Jefferson with the Leigh FMT reminded me of that find. The Pantorouter is very similar in function and has the additional fun of building a machine that one can use.

It's also curiously complex and a bit mesmerising. Watching him making MTs in seconds is fun to watch.

I love my Domino. I've lent it to friends who were curious and it turned into sales. When you grab one and use it, it makes your mind for you. Do you *need* one, no, do you *want* one, yes!

Originally Posted by dalejw

Forget about Delbs and his dowelmaxx, he doesn't even use his shed...

You'd have to pry my Domino from my cold, dead hands.

I love all the traditional joints... When you can see them! Otherwise, load up the Domino.

For me, ideas just flow with the Domino. I experiment, tweak and change designs more since I've had it because the time it takes to join 2 bits of wood is academic. I about until I'm happy and I throw stuff away that I'm not happy with that I would have kept if I'd invested a lot more time in it. I've found it really liberating.

Sometimes I'll work backwards from a Domino joint to make it into something more traditional if it's going to be a feature but if it's hidden, it's going to be a Domino.

I'd say it's been the single biggest creative influence on my woodwork in the last year.

That's without doubt the best reason yet I've heard for buying one: an inspiration for creativity.

Except I'm not going to. Don't need it (can't afford it)!

You can see what im making in my new garage from all the way over there can ya Dale lol. Im not making as much progress as you but im getting there lol

Id happily own and use a domino its just the price of the unit plus dust extraction was crazy. A drill that I already own plus dowels was more within my reach at the time. Who know two worlds might collide and ill own both at some point then ill by double thumbs up

Not sure how much help that is to Stinky. Somewhere between zero and bugger all I'd reckon.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Not sure how much help that is to Stinky. Somewhere between zero and bugger all I'd reckon.

I have been reading it ..... always good to have a bit of varied opinion in a thread.

I am a little surprised that there have been so many comparisons to a biscuit jointer. I can get the comparison for alignment however I cant see how a biscuit would replace a traditional M&T joint, such as adding an apron to a table leg, where I see the Domino would excel at this task.

An opinion from the other side was expressed (and not dogmatically at all) that there are other methods - and so there are. They require more skill, and tools that are mostly probably already in the workshop. So, if the punter happens not to have those skills, as an amateur, and the Domino allows the creative side to be expressed then I say it's a good thing. Not suggesting you don't have the skills Stinky, just generally speaking.

The big thing with a Domino is definitely the speed. You can put together a carcass (for example) in remarkably short time.

Stinky for what it's worth ,I've had 2 biscuit jointers an early downright dangerous one and the Makita which I still have .I would not call the Makita redundant as I may still find a use for it ,how ever I have both the Domino's the 500 from very early on has seen a lot of work ...would not do without it now,as well as the 700 a big brute great for those larger timber jointing jobs such as door builds & picnic settings as well as some bench building.
I have the work for the 500 however the 700 still has to pay for itself something that may or may not happen.

An age old philosophy & one I like to adhere to is ....Buy well buy once it has stood well by me much to my delight

In your fitout I could see where the 500 may well suit your needs & factoring in the cost of the tool into the job, is a plus rather than a tradie doing the same & stinging you into the bargain.
I have a nephew who has not long finished a carpentry appprenticeship predominately in luxury boat fitouts ,he drools over the Domino & wishes he could have had one for some of those joinery tasks he came across back when he was an apprentice fortunately distance is in my favour as far as he is concerned.

Sorry for coming in late here Stinky ,have been away from the forum for a spell I hope your fitouts work smoothly for you .
2C worth from here in the West.

Cheers

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

The big thing with a Domino is definitely the speed. You can put together a carcass (for example) in remarkably short time.

Sir Stinky,

FF has hit the nail on the head here, for my own reasoning anyway. The amount of time I get to spend in my shed is MINIMAL! When I'm in there, I want to be making stuff. Quality stuff, quickly.

I have heaps of respect for those who can make a quality M&T with chisels by hand. I would love to do that. But I didn't buy a quality chisel set until this month. I didn't learn to sharpen properly until last month (after getting into this hobby 10 years ago!). That's how limited my time is.

I made the big decision to buy the Domino. The first project I made were these two side tables https://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/myrtle-tables-137535

After a few practice joints, I had the joinery for the tops done in 2 mins. That's not too impressive, even my GMC biscuit joiner could have done that. But, I made the joinery for the legs, aprons and the table buttons in 20 minutes - for my 1st go. Perfect. Spot on. I'd still be cursing myself with a blunt chisel if it weren't for the Domino.

Again, these are my thoughts. It was a pricey purchase, but I'm now able to bring a project out of the shed and into the house! For me, that's worth it.

Even I really don't know for sure whether I'm a "traditionalist". I never learned woodworking @ school. I wasn't allowed. Somehow the masters regarded the relative merits of French & Latin as a superior education to the manual arts.

I did a bit of whittling & carving in blocks of Huon and King Billy pine as a kid and even bought a very cheap set of Japanese carving chisels. But that's about the sum total of my education in the fine art.

In the 70's I became a Forester, giving me access to a rich range of endemic timbers. Except that I had to do it all from scratch. Felling, cleaving, racking and drying by myself or with colleagues & friends. As time and funds allowed, I acquired the necessary wherewithall. An 090 Stihl, an Alaskan Mill, then an old pto driven bench from a farmer friend. Hooked it up to a series 1 Land Rover.

Here's where things started to go wrong. As the timber racks dried, they were dressed into........boards. Time for a new skillset. A pair of Elu Routers and Saw strapped within a Triton made things easy. They allowed me to mass produce Myrtle flooring, wattle v/j lining and other low value products quick smart. But for furniture utterly hopeless: not just the tools, me also.

This was the apocryphal point in my journey. I should, as a forester, have known it all along but couldn't see it. Wood is a living thing. It has cellular structure in common with all life. To do it justice requires skill, energy, vision and above all else empathy. Otherwise you might as well be welding lumps of steel together & shaping with an angle grinder.

Wood talks to you. It tells you whether it likes what you're doing or not. Feedback in the form of sight, sound, feel and even smell. I think some of you get what I'm saying. To the rest of this just confirms that I'm nuts.

I'm not trying to be all new-agey about it. Nor am I going all tree-huggey commie pinko either. I'm just telling it like it is, or at least is to me anyway. If you're ever going to try to have a sensible "conversation" with a piece of fine timber, then don't do it with a router going, or a powersaw, or a domino, because you can't hear what it's got to say over the noise.

My teacher, mentor and guide became The Woodworker magazine. In the 70's & 80's it was full of sage advice from those infinitely more skilled than me. Plus practise, practise, practise. Lacking education in the art, I probably (definitely) still do things the wrong way. I make a lot of mistakes. But I learn. I definitely, going from the bizarre tone of righteous indignation for not slavishly worshipping at the altar of the god Fess-tool, don't do things the "modern" way. Not because I can't but because I won't.

There's absolutely nothing "magical" about M&T jointing: what nonsense! It's superiority relies on being the only end-grain joint that doesn't rely on glue for either its strength and integrity. It's structure relies instead on the mechanical properties of the timber itself. No matter how many time I say it some people still seem blind to the difference. Is that important? Probably not. Maybe someday someone will actually produce a failure-proof glue, and then we can all "butt-weld" pieces of wood together with glue. Until that time though there's no stronger or more effective (notice I didn't say "efficient") method.

My father & mother gave me a new-fangled device they'd bought on holiday in England for my 21st. birthday. Multico's (and the world's) first "bench" hollow chisel morticer. Multico apparently invented the hollow chisel & auger in the 40's. So I guess it's not as "old fashioned" as some assume. I've seen some older, cruder mechanical devices, however, that relied on a solid chisel and cam arrangement to speed the process.

What a revelation. I felt about it at the time, and even now, probably similar feelings of astonishment & affection that you baying critics feel about your loose tenoners. I had always cut them by hand, using flea market saws. One iron backed one brass backed $5 the pair. Had to teach myself how to sharpen them too: one for ripping, one for cross-cut. One irony is that my father, a champion axeman and sawyer, never taught me how. The chisels were new: $40 the set 1/4", 3/8", 5/16" & 1/2" Marples, sash mortice. The 12' work bench is old. Very very old. There's only an old home-made vise on one side, which I don't use much.

So yes I dig and flare my mortises with an HCM & I cut my tenons with 30yo Radial Arm's Dado Head. I guess that doesn't make me a "traditionalist". I guess It's not "modern" either. I would need to be setting aside many month's income to purchase the products of a company with exceedingly dubious marketing practises to do that. Rest assured I won't be.

Plus of course these items were once the absolute state of the art, and priced accordingly, 30 years ago!

You don't need expensive tools to work wood, at least I don't. Marketers of course would have us think otherwise. Consume, consume, consume. I have always been less displeased with the inconsistencies of my second hand tools than I have been pleasured by an expensive new one. I treasure my tools: they're like old friends. Each one tells a story, where it was acquired, from whom, and what for originally. Many have been gifts, many have been mistakes. Some disasters.

In fact even most of my power tools are repurposed from original owners. I don't have a shed either. All my work is done on a verandah.

So I don't think I'm a traditionalist and definitely not a modernist. But I like to regard myself a pragmatist.

It was an interesting read and journey. I don't mind being in a different corner, as long as I know that upfront and that you tell us you have an agenda.

Now sorry to correct you, but an M & T is not an end-grain joint. It's a double sided face-to-face joint, albeit that the faces are at right angles. Same as a half-lap, albeit enclosed. At least it was when I went to school. A properly seated tenon (loose or not) is strong. The Domino is well seated, unlike many hand-cut mortices, though not as good as my FMT joint. Or one hand cut by Mr Klauss.

End-grain joints fail unless finger or otherwise jointed and glued. The glue experts tell us that these glued joints are stronger than the wood. I too have my doubts.

Google M& T joints. Lots of fun there watching guys botch ONE joint in over 10 minutes. And check out all the hand tools. One guy had three saws!

I intend to make my 16 redgum chairs without one M & T done by hand. Count the joints, especially if I use slats on the back. I expect the joints to outlast me for maybe 20-30 years. After that, redgum won't be fashionable, except maybe as firewood. I don't care. As long as they last me out.

Mea culpa. This is where learning manual arts at school is an advantage.

If it's not and end grain joint, then it's an end grain "concept", or "replacement". What I was trying inadequately to explain is that it's an alternative to butting end grain to long grain. This would be a worst case joint, as there's virtually no adhesive properties in end grain. By elongating long grain (the tenon) against elongated long grain (the mortice) you get greater surface area of the right sort for adhesion. The shoulders themselves remain poor gluing surfaces. It relies on the cheeks almost exclusively.

It's the same concept as a bridle joint, but superior in that the male part can be mechanically "locked" in place with internal or external wedging and tapering of the components.

So I guess it would be more accurately described as an "alternative to an end grain joint", which is what I was striving to say.

Or is that geometrically incorrect also?

Ratbag,

It's too early in the morning to be arguing / debating the merits of tenons v. loose tenons. But I now think I understand what you are trying to say.

Like you, I try and like to listen to the wood. If you run a board against the grain through the thicknesser, you will no doubt hear about it, muffs and all.

Same as on the lathe, though I have been convinced (right here on the Forum) that the noise from a cyclone dust extractor at the port will mean I can't listen too well. But there will be a lot less dust. So some of my listening days are over - I'll have to make do with the pleasure I get from good chisel work.

Now yesterday I ordered a shelix head for my Minimax combo machine for $1800. Ouch. But I did so only after using a jointer with a similar head. For hours on a range of woods. Less tearout, less effort, less noise. I didn't just follow the leader or go that route because I could afford it (just).

OK, I do own a lot of tools, powered and not. My Colen Clenton adjustable squares are worth well over $500. Tool slut with a big shed? You bet.

But getting back to your mortices and some theory. Depending on whether you use quarter-sawn boards for stock or not, your joint will weaken further depending on the season, moisture take-up etc. That's why, years ago, they pinned or wedged the tenons. I'll bet these days few woodies know/care enough/ can afford to use QS boards. But I do know that my dominoes by spec must be closer to QS than not.

I think that's important, at least in theory. I do trust modern glues on side grain.

Now on Monday I had a "purist" cutting tenons (very poorly) with hand tools. She cut the tenons first. Due to some poor handsaw work, the tenons were 1/3rd the width of the board. I didn't hang around long enough to see her cut the mortices to suit the tenons. I left just shaking my head. How she was going to fine-tune the mortices was beyond me.

She was also using re-cycled wood and it was pretty hard. Good luck with that one.

My Dominos would firstly have done a better joint, no question. More accurately and whole lot quicker. And much stronger.

But she was happy and probably believes her hand-cut joints make for heirloom furniture. Sorry, I can't agree. She didn't mind using the jointer-thicknesser, so she's only a purist in half the sense. A pragmatist? You be the judge.