Dowel joint vs biscuit joint

[Marcjwebb]

Ok so strange one but I have been looking at getting a biscuit joiner over using dowels

I need something reliable in terms of accuracy as am going t be doing it a lot.

My only concern is the board thickness setting on them. From what I gather the bottom plate of them is set but then there is a fence on the top.

With this fence if i set that I'm using 18mm boards how reliable and accurate is it going to be ?

Also I have a small dowel jig that I haven't used yet but been reading up on it so that I can start using it.

I just need the joints to be nice and flush at 90 degrees but I also need to be able to offset some of the 90' in by 3 or 4mm

Any guidance here would be great as just toying with what might be he better option


Kind regards

Marc

 

[pcb1962]

I bought a cheap biscuit jointer from Screwfix a few years back, Erbauer or whatever their own brand was at the time. The fence on it was useless, didn't stay parallel to the base as you moved it, and moved around in use even with the locking levers tightened to the point of breaking. I have no doubt that if you bought a Mafell it would be a completely different story. I bought a domino instead.

 

[Marcjwebb]

Thank you for the quick reply

Sorry for my ignorance but what do u mean by domino ?

 

[custard]

Fine Woodworking did a test a few years ago, they looked at many different brands of Biscuit Jointer and tried to measure the alignment accuracy of both the sole plate and the fence by plunging biscuit mortices, fitting a machined metal biscuit, then using a dial indicator to measure any variation along it's length from a reference surface.

Sure there's sample error, operator error, and all the rest of it; but at least they did what they could to take the subjectivity out of these reviews and concentrated on the main determinant of biscuit accuracy-namely how true are the fence and sole to the blade?

And guess what? If you want accuracy then you pretty much get exactly what you pay for.

Lamello was the best by a country mile (they didn't test Mafell, if they had I suspect that would have been right alongside), the rebadged Chinese stuff was at the bottom, and in the middle came all the usual branded suspects. From memory the DeWalt biscuit jointer came second after Lamello but at a much lower price.

That pretty much accords with my experience. I'll use a Lamello (or a Mafell) free hand with complete confidence. I'll use a decent brand if it's fastened down on its sole to a big piece of MDF and the workpiece is jigged and cramped in front of it (shimming the sole or the workpiece to get the offsets you mentioned), and the cheap and cheerful stuff I won't touch because I want totally flush joints rather than almost flush.

Good luck!

 

[pcb1962]

http://www.festooldomino.com/mortisers- ... no-df-500/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ool+domino

 

[MMUK]

Domino is the over priced Festool alternative. Not worth the investment unless you're turning out 100's of items per month, especially seeing as the Domino "biscuits" are well over £100 +VAT for a basic selection.

FWIW, I have a Makita 18v Li-Ion biscuit jointer and use Faithfull beech biscuits, about £8 for a tub of 150 biscuits. They're more than strong enough for 99% of jobs.

 

[sploo]

Domino is the over priced Festool alternative. Not worth the investment unless you're turning out 100's of items per month, especially seeing as the Domino "biscuits" are well over £100 +VAT for a basic selection.

FWIW, I have a Makita 18v Li-Ion biscuit jointer and use Faithfull beech biscuits, about £8 for a tub of 150 biscuits. They're more than strong enough for 99% of jobs.

They're slightly different tools though; a biscuit is more for alignment, and a domino is a mortice and tenon replacement (for a strong joint). Granted you can use small dominos for alignment, and larger biscuits probably add strength to some types of joint, so there is some crossover.

 

[SteveF]

Domino is the over priced Festool alternative. Not worth the investment unless you're turning out 100's of items per month, especially seeing as the Domino "biscuits" are well over £100 +VAT for a basic selection.

FWIW, I have a Makita 18v Li-Ion biscuit jointer and use Faithfull beech biscuits, about £8 for a tub of 150 biscuits. They're more than strong enough for 99% of jobs.

there is no difference in cost of dominos to biscuits

190 =£11.76 6x40mm
so only a penny different each

Steve

 

[RobinBHM]

No20 biscuits are usually about £25 or so for a box of a 1000

I use a lamello jointer its done over 10,000 biscuits and still very accurate. I also have a dewalt jointer which is pretty good. The problem with cheaper biscuit jointers is that the slot is not perfectly parallel.

I always avoid placing the biscuit in the centre of a board, always offset so there is no chance of fitting the wrong way round.

 

[Roughcut]

I've had a DeWalt biscuit jointer for about 10 years and found it to be faultless in use and efficiency.
I tend to buy the Trend brand biscuits, im sure there are many other good brands out there too but I once bought a bag of tanselli biscuits from an independent diy store and the sizes were all over the place.
The Trend biscuits I've always used since are spot on.

 

[Adam9453]

Domino is the over priced Festool alternative. Not worth the investment unless you're turning out 100's of items per month, especially seeing as the Domino "biscuits" are well over £100 +VAT for a basic selection.

FWIW, I have a Makita 18v Li-Ion biscuit jointer and use Faithfull beech biscuits, about £8 for a tub of 150 biscuits. They're more than strong enough for 99% of jobs.

It's like most things, you pay your money and get what you pay for. Yes a domino is more expensive than the other handheld jointing systems but it's a damn sight more useful across a much broader spectrum of work. It does everything the other systems do without the drawbacks associated with each one. It's stronger than biscuits, more forgiving and stronger than dowels and did I mention the joints are very strong!!

If you can't afford a domino then you need to look at what you're going to use it for to determine which of the cheaper options you can get away with using. What are you planning on doing with the jointer?

 

[HOJ]

Are you using the biscuits or dowels to provide strength in the joint? may help to answer the question more directly.

Any way, cheap biscuit jointers, are, as has been said, more a liability than a solution, a good machine will earn its keep,
but only used for alignment.

Dowels, in my experience, can be difficult to align properly, but will strengthen a joint.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I have both a BJ and a Domino, and I prefer each one for different jobs.

I'd use a BJ for carcase construction using sheet goods, as alignment is easier, and I'd use A Domino for face frames and similar small-scale M&T joinery.

I once went to the Festool factory in Germany, and there they told us that the reason that there isn't a Festool BJ is because they could not fault the Lamello and they were not into Me Too products. Personally I have a Mafell and I can't fault that.

 

[Adam9453]

I have both a BJ and a Domino, and I prefer each one for different jobs.

I'd use a BJ for carcase construction using sheet goods, as alignment is easier, and I'd use A Domino for face frames and similar small-scale M&T joinery.

I once went to the Festool factory in Germany, and there they told us that the reason that there isn't a Festool BJ is because they could not fault the Lamello and they were not into Me Too products. Personally I have a Mafell and I can't fault that.

I'm surprised you find alignment more difficult with the domino, do you use the tighter setting for one side and the looser setting for the other side? If you do, then alignment should be a breeze. If not then it could be a little stickier than biscuit jointing

 

[Steve Maskery]

Ah, no, you misunderstand.
For standard sheet goods (18mm) it's just easier to use biscuits rather than cutting short doms. The accuracy is the same.

 

[Adam9453]

Ah I see

 

[Steve Maskery]

Don't forget that a dowel joint is intrinsically weaker than even a biscuit, let alone a Dom, because of the grain orientation.
S

 

[sploo]

Don't forget that a dowel joint is intrinsically weaker than even a biscuit, let alone a Dom, because of the grain orientation.
S

Trying to get my head around that - if I were to join two pieces of timber together at a right angle (a butt joint, as if I were making a picture frame), surely the joint would be much stronger with a (sufficiently sized) dowel in the joint than a biscuit?

A domino is really just a fancy (fat) dowel, and joints with suitable dominos are hugely strong.

Though, at the end of the day of course - it doesn't matter if a is stronger than b; if b is strong enough for the job in hand it's good enough.

 

[Adam9453]

Don't forget that a dowel joint is intrinsically weaker than even a biscuit, let alone a Dom, because of the grain orientation.
S

Tests don't agree I'm afraid Steve, the biscuits were weakest when tested against dowels and other joint types

 

[Steve Maskery]

I don't think so.

A dowel has very little face-grain to face-grain surface area. Sure it goes in further than a biscuit, but a biscuit is entirely F2F, and it also occupies more of the width of the wood.

Adam, do you have a reference for that? I need to be convinced.