Thread: Domino: What am i doing wrong

Well, it can help!

Ive also found these to be useful for that kind of work: Domiplate for 1/2" and 3/4" nominal ply | Seneca Woodworking

Originally Posted by Evanism

Well, it can help!

Ive also found these to be useful for that kind of work: Domiplate for 1/2" and 3/4" nominal ply | Seneca Woodworking

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you've got all the tricks

Im the accessory king!

I have a couple of general suggestions.

1. Rather than continue testing with the pine, machine up some hardwood to give you a pair of perfect boards to test your process out on.

2. Despite what the Festool rep recommended, I'd suggest although the factory setting can be perfect in many situations, if you feel your machine needs any adjustments, then make them as required as per the supplementary manual. No point being religious about these things, if it need adjustment it needs adjustment. So for example, if your centering window is not correct, make it so.

3. Most people don't use a jig for this joint, so abandon your jig for a bit and try free hand as most do and as it was designed to be used. I'm not saying your jig will not provide improvements to accuracy, but just getting back to basics / stepping back for a bit.

4. Use the supplied support bracket if required.

5. Check the fence height clamp is definitely clamping tight. These can loosen after some use and the screw holding the lever needs to be removed from lever rotated a little, then screw replaced, proving a stronger clamping force and ensuring the fence does not slip from the set depth during a plunge.

Good luck - hope you get your issues sorted.

I've only used a Domino a handful of times in MDF (We use a Zeta 2 machine mostly at work [emoji33]) so hardly an expert but could the cutter be grabbing the grain of the timber and moving around slightly, causing a misalignment.

Originally Posted by godzilla73

could the cutter be grabbing the grain of the timber and moving around slightly, causing a misalignment.

This is a good point. I thought this was a possibility previously.

A client came back with a chest made a year ago. They live in Goulburn where it is dry as buggery and the panels shrunk. They needed new ones put in...so I cut the top off, made up new panels and put it back together with Dominos.

As I didn't have nice neat surfaces to press a register-plate against for stability, I had to free hand it! Every angle was impossible to put a domiplate or the flap against... What I found, to my complete amazement, was the weight to the tool was more than enough to hold it in place while being used. The drilling/swooshing action didn't jerk the tool around, or pull it off the alignment marks.

it was somewhat baffling. Given its aggressive back-and-forth drilling nature you'd assume it would be a wild bucking horse....but it wasn't the case at all. It was very smooth, very predictable and bang-on.

YMMV and others will proclaim this dangerous and insane, which it should be, but at the time it didnt feel it was about to derail or cause mischief.

Originally Posted by Evanism

This is a good point. I thought this was a possibility previously.

A client came back with a chest made a year ago. They live in Goulburn where it is dry as buggery and the panels shrunk. They needed new ones put in...so I cut the top off, made up new panels and put it back together with Dominos.

As I didn't have nice neat surfaces to press a register-plate against for stability, I had to free hand it! Every angle was impossible to put a domiplate or the flap against... What I found, to my complete amazement, was the weight to the tool was more than enough to hold it in place while being used. The drilling/swooshing action didn't jerk the tool around, or pull it off the alignment marks.

it was somewhat baffling. Given its aggressive back-and-forth drilling nature you'd assume it would be a wild bucking horse....but it wasn't the case at all. It was very smooth, very predictable and bang-on.

YMMV and others will proclaim this dangerous and insane, which it should be, but at the time it didnt feel it was about to derail or cause mischief.

This does make me think about plunge speed and accuracy. Some people plunge fast, some slow. Fast into end grain can cause inaccurate mortices. Nearly every plunge I make produces an accurate mortice (dose not mean I've putt he mortice in the right spot of course ), but if I wanted to be sloppy and produce inaccurate mortices, fast plunging is the way to do it.

Thanks for the suggestions and help.

I have tried a few a few different things now and I think I have it as good as can be expected. Feels like it is out by about 1/4 of a mm.

Putting the support bracket on helped. What also helped was cutting the boards on my tuned table saw with a super sled instead of using my drop saw. I put a right angle on the boards cut by the dropsaw and I could see a little light. Drop saw is now in parts while I work out how to tune it.

The jig has now been downgraded to a fancy clamp for holding the boards still.