Something to rival the Festool Domino perhaps?

[MrYorke]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VUI67MZUsCs

 

[Steve Maskery]

I have a Mafell BJ and it is excellent. I am sure that the Duo will be as well engineered.

But.

The concept is fundamentally flawed. Any M&T joint, trad or loose, relies on face-grain to face-grain glued surfaces, and any dowel joint, no matter how accurately drilled, has very little of that. Arguably none, actually.

S

 

[custard]

Mafel kit is gorgeous, for my money just that bit better quality than Festool.

But I think the "duo dowel" system is Mafell's desperate attempt to steal a bit of the lucrative Domino market (despite being severely restricted by Festool's patent protection) rather than genuinely delivering something better. I think it suffers from at least one big drawback, dowels just don't allow you to cut a "loose" mortice which gives that millimetre or two of wiggle room to get everything aligned during the glue-up. Hence Mafell's focus on the alignment jig and sheet goods, because with a dowel based system it's either absolutely perfect...or it's a right mess where joints refuse to close up, there's not much in the middle!

 

[Woodchips2]

You need deep pockets to buy one of these

How long before Aldi or Lidl bring out a copy at £29.95? :lol:

Regards Keith

 

[Richard S]

You need deep pockets to buy one of these

How long before Aldi or Lidl bring out a copy at £29.95? :lol:


Regards Keith

Already been done, B&Q did one a few years ago for pennies and I had a version by Freud before the Domino arrived. Not a bad bit of kit, based on standard Euro system with 32mm spacing. come up on Ebay from time to time for not a lot of money.

 

[pcb1962]

You need deep pockets to buy one of these

How long before Aldi or Lidl bring out a copy at £29.95? :lol:


Regards Keith

Already been done, B&Q did one a few years ago for pennies and I had a version by Freud before the Domino arrived. Not a bad bit of kit, based on standard Euro system with 32mm spacing. come up on Ebay from time to time for not a lot of money.

There's a Triton for £132
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Triton-TDJ600-D ... B00FZ5MTFO

 

[skinee]

[

 

[custard]

Mafel kit is gorgeous, for my money just that bit better quality than Festool.

But I think the "duo dowel" system is Mafell's desperate attempt to steal a bit of the lucrative Domino market (despite being severely restricted by Festool's patent protection) rather than genuinely delivering something better. I think it suffers from at least one big drawback, dowels just don't allow you to cut a "loose" mortice which gives that millimetre or two of wiggle room to get everything aligned during the glue-up. Hence Mafell's focus on the alignment jig and sheet goods, because with a dowel based system it's either absolutely perfect...or it's a right mess where joints refuse to close up, there's not much in the middle!

mafell have been making and selling the duo dowel machine years before the festool domino was conceived so its nonsense to say they are trying to 'steal a bit of trade',it is also designed for precision with no 'wiggle room' intended,another advantage is that the fence stays parallel and stays put,unlike the domino machine,also festool had to remove the pins and replaced them with paddles on their fence as it they infringed on mafell patents,the triton look-alike is junk,dont waste your time.

I didn't realise the Mafell Duo Dowel preceded the Domino, thanks for that information. I should also clarify what I mean by "wiggle room", it's not some sort of error or sloppy manufacturing on the part of Festool, it's a deliberate feature of the design and actually one of its key advantages over the Duo Dowel. On both the Domino 500 and 700 you can select precise mortice width, or by flipping a lever you can make the mortice a couple of mill wider. This means you can work with solid timber just as accurately as with sheet goods, referencing off the work piece itself rather than a jig. If all else fails you can also trim the width of the Domino to achieve a tight fitting yet secure joint, something else that you can't do with a dowel.

Another advantage of the Domino is flexibility. The Duo Dowel has a fixed distance between the two dowels (from memory I think it's 32mm to fit with the 32mm sheet goods layout system) so the minimum component width is 32mm plus the drill bit diameter plus a safety margin to prevent the dowels breaking out of the edge, let's say it all adds up to 50mm. So you couldn't use the Duo Dowel for example to attach a 45mm wide apron to a leg, or a 35mm cabinet door rail to a stile.

But the real proof of the pudding is that when I think back over the commercial workshops I've known, the Domino is used everywhere, where I've only ever seen the Duo Dowel actually being used in workshops that worked exclusively with sheet material.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I must say, by the almost viral like spread of the Domino I also thought it preceded the Mafell. I imagine Mafell must be kicking themselves but doesn't it go to show what a difference that extra bit of well thought through innovation does to the outcome of a product line.