Doweling Jointer vs. Festool Domino
dstevick
| Posted in Power Tools and Machinery on
Hi All,
I recently ran across this Dual Spindle Doweling Jointer and was wondering if it would be a good substitute for the Domino. I’m mainly a hobbyist woodworker and find it hard to justify the cost of the Domino. I don’t know if these doweling jointers are a new product or not but they seem promising.
The only negative I can see is that if you have to put in multiple dowels the alignment would be more fussy than the loose tendons for the Domino.
What do you all think?
Replies
I own the DF 700 Domino, so I’m a little biased. The dowel tool, as you said, would be harder in aligning. Ten mm Dominos (the largest on the DF 500) are a bit thicker than the 5/16” dowels, so some extra strength there. On the other hand, the 1 1/2” maximum depth of the doweler is more than the 10mm DF 500. I would say the biggest difference would be alignment, with joint strength second. If you were comparing to the DF 700, and price wasn’t an issue, there’s no comparison, the Domino wins easily. If it all comes down to whether you need adjustable mortises for alignment, the doweler loses. I guess one other consideration is how sloppy the doweler is. I owned a Lamello biscuit joiner in the 80s. When the patent ran out the cheap knockoffs made very sloppy joints that wouldn’t help in aligning adjoining pieces. A waste of time.
Take a look at the Beadlock system (Rockler) and see if it might suit your purpose. It's basically a jig for your drill and uses loose tenons. It takes a bit of practice to get the jig to stay steady and drill carefully, but it's certainly cheaper than a Festool.
Excellent comments from eddo234 and stantheman. After alignment and sloppiness, your question made me think of joint strength which reminded me of a FW article on the subject:
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2009/01/01/joinery-shootout
https://www.finewoodworking.com/membership/pdf/57138/011203036.pdf
Excellent article. I've saved it for future reference.
I've seen way too many dowel joints fail. I'll never use one. It's just not worth it.
I use a domino when the joint won't be under stress. I use frame and panel construction for the backs if carcasses, and those joints will never be under strain, so a Domino is quick and simple. But for a door, or apron to leg joinery, I'll only use traditional mortise and tenons.
Some people like dowels, but I'll never touch them.
Domino wins in a rout. I've seen and repaired too many doweled items to consider them. Maybe in 50 years they'll be saying the same thing about the things I'v made with the dominos!
I would have thought so too, but the load test referenced above shows the 3 dowel Dowelmax beating the Domino. I think the Domino is strong enough for anything I throw at it, and I make my own Dominos, so in situation like the test, if I think the loads going to be especially high I make a much wider Domino so it's more like a big floating tenon. The speed and adjustability of the Domino (making a wider mortise so the joint alignment can be adjusted) for many joints is the reason I own one.
Yeah, I just looked... that domino joint was badly conceived, it even looks wrong. That joint would get two dominos in my shop. I wonder how a single dowel would do. It would look as silly as that one lonely domino.
👍
As a hobbyist, this is as cheap, unfussy, and accurate as you can get.
I used one like that for a couple of years in the early 1980s. It was all you’ve said about it. I’ll add “slow” to its description, which my not matter to a hobbyist. Mine had bushings to replace when worn, similar to this one.
I will throw my .02 in here... I do find that table of joint failures fascinating - especially love the modest half lap being so strong! When I go down that list in the past six months or so I have used half lap joints, bridle joints, M & T joints, floating M & T joints, Biscuits (as an alignment tool), Dowels, Dominoes, even simple cope and stick joints where panels were glued in place. All those techniques are useful in the correct application and when executed well.
The Festool Domino is a great machine and has revolutionized loose tenon joinery and if you can afford it, it is a great tool. But before I owned one I had a Dowelmax jig which was a phenomenal tool in many ways as well - I still use it periodically as a "quick and dirty" joinery tool. It is significantly more expensive than many doweling jigs but much less expensive than a Festool Domino and has some serious engineering making it impressively accurate - check the videos and you can also see the easy way to align over long joint surfaces beyond the five or so dowels in the jig. In the distant past I joined two 48" long boards with dowels with a perfect fit.
Can dowel joints fail - for sure, but so can any joint as you can see in that article. I certainly wouldn't use it in situations where only 1-2 dowels can fit and wouldn't use it in high stress situations like joining chair pieces, but for wider rail/stile applications like simple frames I wouldn't be worried about failures. And you can certainly use it in many situations where a Domino is the preferred (but far more expensive) option.
Check out the Woodpecker Morty. It is a guide for a router that makes domino sized mortices. It sets up well and is super accurate. Also much cheaper than a domino.
Another guy who gives dowels a pass here. I used a Mortise Pal for years before the Domino became known. I sold my original version but still use the new version for larger floating tenons. Someone may have one in a drawer. You could post in the classifieds of a few forums and ask.
The following link is to a FWW article using a router for mortises and floating tenons.
https://www.finewoodworking.com/project-guides/chairs-benches-and-stools/4-introduction-to-mortising
That's what I used for many years. I was recently at a restaurant at an inn that I had built all the tables for in the mid 80s, 2 tops, 4 tops, and 6 tops, 20-25 in all (can't remember the exact number), mahogany with turned pedestal and curved legs, all assembled using floating tenons, with mortises cut with a router, and all joints in like-new condition after nearly 40 years. The photo is from their website.
One major advantage of the domino is that you can use the setting with slightly wider mortice than the domino piece. That means you don't need to be spot on layout wise or hitting your layout lines when you make the cuts. A dowel have a round hole and there's no room for layout error or cut aligment error, they need to be spot on.
Also the domino can be used on quite narrow parts, more narrow than those two dowel holes that machine makes.
I also have a feeling dominos are produced to higher accuracy than dowels. Maybe there are special high tolerance dowels for this purpose?
Or you can make your own, like I do, to any tolerance you want. I run a bunch of long ones from scraps, 3-6' long usually, then cut them to length as needed.
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