Beyond basic mortise and tenon joinery/carcass construction the Festool Domino XL also has potential to replace my biscuit joiner.
I’ve been working on a curly cherry shaker console table for our dining room and wanted to see how well the indexing fence would work in gluing up a table top. The first step was milling the wood and laying it out to get the best grain patterns.From there I marked out where I wanted the dominoes — being careful to make sure when the top is cut to final size no domino would be exposed. I also marked the center lines on blue tape to save with later cleanup.
TIP: set the tape back from the edge — otherwise you run the risk of having blue tape forever captured in your joint and ruining the appearance of the top.
I started off working the same way I would with a biscuit joiner — using the center line as my guide. Things moved along well and with the dust collector attached the machine left nice clean holes. On the second joint I used the indexing fence to speed up production. The key to using this fence well is making sure that you have BOTH fences set exactly the same and doing a test cut on scrap wood — this way you can be sure your joints line up the way you want. The first time using this method I did the same measuring and tape technique to gauge if I was drifting at all. If you are diligent in applying pressure so that your indexing pin is firmly in place you’ll be amazed with the result.If you are worried about the drift, you can set the machine to cut wider mortises and give some wiggle room like you have with biscuits. (I would recommend this technique for very long table tops — the more dominos you use in a row the more chance you have of making an error — but when going this route you have to be mindful of how your wider mortises can affect where the next mortise is set and lead you to drift off from where you expect as the extra room adds up — so use it with caution and/or mark things out as I have done above)
In an upcoming post I will cover using the domino to construct the carcase to support this table top — wherein the skirt boards were all made from a single piece of wood and provides a continuous grain pattern across the piece including the drawer fronts. Stay tuned.
Festool Domino XL with indexing fence ready to join a table top
Curly Cherry boards milled and ready to be joined.
Setting up the Domino is easy with clearly marked gauges.
Taped and marked holes on board edges with dominoes dry fitted in place
Unpacking and first impressions of the Domino. (I’ve been slow to get online so these pics are a few weeks old and I am working to get caught up on my backlog)
I was chosen to be one of the first 25 North American Test/Demo users of the new Festool Domino XL which is the Domino’s big brother.
Initial Impressions:
Like all my other Festools this tool seems to be solidly built and very well designed
Fence adjustments and setup are familiar to all who have used the original Domino
I like that I has the Festool quick connect power cord that can easily work with Rail Saw and Jigsaw
Solves an interesting problem set (loose tenon joinery) in an interesting way that certainly gives my Biscuit joiner a run for its money (It will be interesting to examine the speed comparison to using both systems and cost per domino vs cost per biscuit)
Tool feels well balanced given its size and heft
New generation Systainers are a definite improvement compared to the 1st generation. Instead of 2 locks its one turn on the front to engage the locking. I also like that old generation units can be attached to the bottom of the new ones, though a little sad its only one way — old units are always relegated to the bottom. I have a few (~4) extra Systainers from McFeelys filled with square drive screw assortments, but I wish the price point would come down on at least the old generation systainer as I’d really stock up on them but they can be prohibitively expensive for other tools.
Domino XL Systainer and Domino Tenon Assortment Systainer all have new removable plastic trays instead of the wood dividers in the previous generation. I liked the use of wood in the original generation as it had more feeling of craftsmanship instead of plastic fantastic, but I do like how the new plastic trays can be moved around. I could see if I knew ahead of time what I was working on at a job site just loading up the Domino Systainer’s trays with what I need and traveling a little lighter.
Next post — more of the tool in action and using Domino fences.
Check out the slideshow below (additional comments in the captions):
Rainford Restorations 