Any interest in a podcast comparison of Dowelmax and Domino?

Mot -

Let me be the first to chime in with a “yes” vote. I enjoyed your shop tour and would love to see some more! Also, we can all salivate over the Domino!

-- http://foldingrule.blogspot.com

Even after the write up in wood, I’m especially interested.

You already know you’re gonna do it. Now you know we’ll be watching!

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

Excellent Scott!

Mot we will be watching!

-- http://foldingrule.blogspot.com

We’re waiting, and waiting…Take your time….Did I tell you…Yes world be my vote Mot. Again, thanks for sharing your shop tour with us.

Are you an only child? I debate my self all the time. I have always blamed it on the fact that I was an only kid and didn’t have anyone to talk to when I was growing up.

-- Carpe Lignum - Seize The Wood,

hmmm, is that an only child trait there PJ? I’ll have to ask my uncle (long story short, as the youngest of 4, he grew up as an only child)

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

Nope, I’m the youngest. I was, however, home alone for 4 years so….. The video is shot and I’m capturing it. It’s going to be another in my lengthening line of unscripted, unedited videos, so if you have any complaints on production quality, send them to /dev/null (*nix joke)

Also, I don’t have a cameraperson, or a tripod so I just put the camera down on things. Many of you may be delighted to know that I am the headless woodworker through most of this production. It should be posted some time tonight, but it’s about 20 minutes long so it may not be until sometime tomorrow as I’ll have to encode it to .wmv…anyway…Stay tuned! (another anticipation building post!)

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

I don’t have any experience with either of the tools so I don’t think I would be much help here. The Domino looks pretty cool though.

-- Steffen

Can’t wait! Og Mot og! (Kid sister type humor…sorry)

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

First it was the biscuit joiner then the Kreg Pocket Hole jig now it’s the Donino….
“Gee, I have $800 I think I’ll throw it out on the street….oh…I can buy this thing for $800!!!!
...cool…..now what???”

Buy wood instead. We were wood workers before the Domino we’ll still be wood workers without it.

My 2 cents.

-- I've got a bandsaw in my kitchen...

Hey Corndog, spend your money on whatever brings you joy! I was a woodworker before I had a tablesaw too…or a cordless drill…or a bandsaw. I mean really, a jigsaw does that right? Plus you can cut inside cuts with it…now I have to have a bandsaw and a scrollsaw? I suppose I can’t veneer with the jigsaw…Oh wait now? I’m making my own veneer instead of just buying wood? The argument that buy “insert something here” instead is an individual one. Mine goes something like this. “Buy wood too!” Which one of us is correct? I’d say we both are, it’s just that I won’t jump up and critisize you for all those tools you DON’T buy.

Cheers!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Yes, I would love to see the comparison. It goes with the latest Wood magazine, where they compared the strength of the various joints made – dowels, biscuits, Dowelmax, and Domino.

It would be great to see an everyday comparison of how to make these joints, which you like better, which is easier, etc.

Great idea Mot.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

Count me in as super interested. I’ve been lusting after a Domino, and have seen some of the preview data for the Wood magazine tests and am having trouble believing that they measured anything other than experimental error, but sometime when my life gets back somewhere near normal I’ve got a few projects that’ll want something stronger than a biscuit.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

Corndog, I think that you need to view the Domino in the same ballpark as if you might be in the market for a dedicated mortising machine – in other words, if your production “schedule” dictates it. The pro woodworkers who write about the Dominio describe it as being like a quantum leap in production efficiency. Time is money as they say. It is a balance we all have to walk.

-- John

I notice the Wood magazine article compares each of these joints to a “true” mortise and tenon of 1”. It seems they should have made the M&T the same size as the others to be more comparable. But, it was still the strongest of the joints tested.

All of the joints, except the biscuits, broke the wood before the glue joint failed. The biscuits broke before that would happen. A good commentary on the use of the joints was to use what suits you best.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

I’m a yes vote as well. I’m interested, even if other things may come first.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Hello Mot and everyone;

—-I have been following the Festool//Domino theory for some time and like others here, when it comes to a production mode of thinking, then Domino is really at the top!

Having said that; I have also been following these links below for some time now as they are screaming loud about a certain test done by the folks at Wood. If you want to follow these links then I think these speak more on the Domino theory….you be the judge!

These folks over at the land of OZ are hard to beat, and they know their woodworking: http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=49488

....and….

then there’s the forum at Festool: http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=9969c4a1d3e548faaab67787fb7399ab&topic=845.msg7674#msg7674

....and…. http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/wood/story/data/1178129509968.xml&catref=cat5610002

Enjoy and thanks;
GODSPEED,
Frank

-- --frank, NH, http://frank.wordpress.com/

Thanks for those links, Frank. Those are great discussions.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

It would be interesting to compare shear strength and tear apart strength of “true mortise & tenon with mortise and floating tenon.

By the way, (or should I say BTW) can plywood be used to make a floating tenon – I suppose the difficulty might be that you always make the mortise first and fit the tenon to the mortise and with plywood the tenon is already made. It might be very difficult to make a perfect mortise to size…anybody ever try this?

-- John

Variability in actual plywood thickness might be an issue. I bought a bag of biscuits about 2 years ago that were 1/8” baltic birch. I was a little suprised as I thought that biscuits were supposed to be expansile. These were not. They had slop in the joint and never tightened up. I threw them away.

I think if you were cutting the mortise by hand, you could use baltic birch ply as a floating tenon, but with a dedicated mortiser, trying to fit a chisel to a plywood thickness might be a challenge. Also trying to fit a router bit to a plywood thickness might not be so easy. I suppose you could plane the plywood to exact thickness to match either a domino cutter, router bit or hollow chisel. As long as you didn’t have to take too much off. It might work.

Might have to try this.

As for shear and tensile strength of these joints, doesn’t it tend come down to taking the weight of 2 fully grown men, jumping up and down on it to break it, vs the weight of 2 1/4 fully grown men? They all seem very strong and eventually glue dependant for dowels, tenons and floating tenons. Just my observation with reading the tests that have been done that I’ve gotten my hands on.

As for Wood Mags test, they don’t really do a comparison using any equalization calculation for cross sectional area of the tenon, so the data they gathered is rather equivocal.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

—-just answering my two cents here;

Woodspar, you mentioned in your reply above; ”I suppose the difficulty might be that you always make the mortise first and fit the tenon to the mortise….”

Actually I will make the tenon first and then fit the mortise to the tenon. I do this since my mortise and tenons are usually not shaped in symmetrical order….just as I am working now on a table that I rived the legs from some oak. I know I could just make a round over on the tenon after cutting the mortise which I sometimes do, but then I also sometimes just go with the grain of the wood and shape my tenons first. Since when I am working this way in the mode of ‘rustic’, the work of cutting and shaping is all being done by hand….with the use of my drawknife, timber firmer chisel, gouges and takuma saw. When the tenons are cut I then apply the shape of the tenon to the top with an outline and then proceed to clean out the wood from the inside of the mortise cut….then often applying a bevel to the inside of the mortise cut if I am going after the strength of a Fox wedged tenon.

Works for me and this is not an only way, but just one of many ways….and since I am doing ‘rustic’ vs ‘traditional’ woodworking much of what I do is by hand and that is my choice.

I have found, that if I also cut the tenon first and my tenon should shrink, ( I also leave the tenon to acclimatize for a while ) then it’s much easier to adjust my mortise to size of what the tenon has now become.

Thank you.
GODSPEED,
Frank

-- --frank, NH, http://frank.wordpress.com/

I really enjoyed your podcast.

-- Jesus is Lord!

Hi Mot

I will check out the Podcast when you post it, with intrest. I enjoyed the shop tour.

So now for my 2c. on the Domino – I nearly bought one, but I could not find the local dealer on the internet, we only have one dealer in Finland.

Any way to cut a long story short, I decided to go with the FMT. On relection, I am happy that I made that choice, in my eyes in more versatile, but a little more expensive, you can also do loose tennon joinery.

If I was working on-site all the time, then the domino would be extreemly useful, but for the workshop the FMT, I think is the correct choice, where exteeme speed in not critical.

-- Tony - All things are possible, just some things are more difficult than others! - SKYPE: Heron2005 (http://www.poydatjatuolit.fi)

Tony, the FMT looks like a joy to use as well. David did a really cool podcast on it’s use. Check out his blog.

A user on the festoolownersgroup.com came up with a neat idea of incorporating the indexing rod from the Dowelmax for use with the Domino. That would add even more speed and versatility to the Domino. Might be worth a try.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Oh…by the way, this is posted in my Lumberjocks Blog now. I should have updated the forum.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)