Domino 700 - which accessories?

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks to another forum member's kindness (with a voucher), I'm about to pull the trigger on a Domino XL purchase. It's going to be doors, doors and more doors in the main, and I'm hoping to do a few test projects over the summer, with the big batch (eight or ten interior doors, three or four fairly simple external ones and a garden gate) probably starting in the autumn.

My local Festool dealer is really nice to deal with, and I'm getting a package of things together, to take best advantage of prices now, before they go up. I went to see him yesterday, and got a basic list together, but wondered if I was missing anything important:

• The Domino itself, including power cord and Systainer and 12mm cutter
• The bigger "Sortainer" selection of dominos (12mm & 14mm)
• Cross stops
  The equivalent clip-on thingy for morticing into ends of smaller rails, etc.

If you're an owner or regular user, please chip-in with your thoughts on anything I might have missed.

I'm not guaranteeing to buy every accessory going. The extractor hose with attached power cable is a very sensible idea, but certainly not at 120 quid (+VAT)! I have cable ties and I'm not afraid to use them ...

... which reminds me: Has anyone used those power cord tails that Festool sell, to allow you to make up your own cables? I'm not keen on having a second in-line connector close to the machine, but it wouldn't matter much on a Domino, as the main task in use is to hold it still in exactly the right place. It's not like a rail saw in that respect.

I have three different possibilities for dust extraction, low volume high pressure, very LVHP, and the chip catcher for the table saw/planer thicknesser, in effect HVLP) . I'm guessing one of the two high-pressure units would be best - right? But before anyone says, Festool's Hoovers may be lovely, but a fourth unit is too expensive and anyway would take up too much space really.

Thanks for all thoughts.

E.

PS: It's rather nice to be able to buy this locally, too. I've had very good service from some of the national mail-order firms, but to be able to do it over the counter, and have local support is great.

 

[custard]

If you're doing external work you'll need Sipo dominos rather than the standard Beech ones. Incidentally "Sipo" is just the German word for Utile, so you can save some money by making your own. Given that the Sipo versions only come in long lengths for you to cross cut to length, there's an added incentive to machine your own.

But the most important thing won't cost you a penny. It's to remember that Dominos are only approximately calibrated when they leave the factory, with final calibration down to the user. True, the 700 seems to be more accurately set than the 500, and unlike the 500 the off-set pegs are fixed and non-adjustable, but it's still your responsibility to check the cursor location on the perspex screen.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks.

I'm hoping to use Accoya for most of these projects and was thinking about 'rolling my own' dominoes too. I checked on the uncut lengths whilst I was in the Festool dealer yesterday and they are rather expensive two or three quid (plus VAT), which is silly really.

I also spent a happy few minutes playing with their display unit. Thanks to a few YouTube videos, I'd already picked up on the calibration thing, and the one in the shop was visibly misaligned with respect to the machined 'tick' in the fence casting (not the triangle - too far away to tell, and obviously I couldn't actually run the unit). A slight worry was that it didn't look like there was a big enough range of adjustment to correct what I could see. Of course if that line in the casting is "not to be used for final alignment" or whatever, it's not a problem.

It was also the first time I've seen 12mm and 14mm dominoes in the flesh: those are serious loose tenons! Altogether quite encouraging.

Have to say that I like the 700's indexing pegs more than those of the 500 (in its latest form. The two were side-by-side on the display. Overall it feels very well built.

 

[Doug71]

You will love the Domino 700, I think it is possibly the best power tool money can buy.

I got the cross stop but hardly ever use it.

When using the Domino I find it better to push it from the back so you are pushing directly in line with the plunge action rather then holding it by the handle when plunging. If you hold the handle there is more chance of it moving up and down.

I have converted my makita sander with a plug it connector so everything can be swapped round quickly.

 

[Doug71]

The indexing pegs are really good. I made a kitchen last year and didn't need to do any marking out of the joints on the doors. I just cut the stiles and rails off to length and the dominos fell right using the pins, really quick and efficient.

 

[johnnyb]

It's a nice machine but can have accuracy issues that are sometimes difficult to cure.
Don't try and use 70mm plunges it's possible but leads to misalignment. (140mm tenon's)
Perhaps it's just my machine but I guess the tolerance of that spinning oscillating cutter out at 3 inches multiplied by 2 is quite loose.

 

[johnnyb]

Coupled with user error!

 

[custard]

You will love the Domino 700, I think it is possibly the best power tool money can buy.

I'm a big fan of the Domino and I've used both the 500 and 700 for many years, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as that.

A lot of newcomers to woodworking lust after a Domino, believing it's a silver bullet solution for all their jointing needs. However, a Domino has three significant constraints that anyone thinking about buying one needs to be aware of.

-Dominos come in a huge variety of lengths and thicknesses, but the range of width options is much more restricted. This has some important implications in that you'll frequently encounter dimensions that are a bit too wide for a single Domino, yet a bit too narrow for two Dominos. For example, the common furniture rail width of 50-55mm or 2-2 1/4" falls into this category. Yes, there are work arounds, like overlapping mortices and custom made tenons, but then you lose the speed and efficiency advantage that makes the Domino attractive in the first place. The bottom line is that projects work best when they've been designed from the outset to fit comfortably within Domino boundaries.

-You can't easily use a Domino for haunched work. Again, there are work arounds, but they're a bit clunky and time consuming. So if haunched tenons are an important part of your work then you'll probably be better off with a traditional morticing machine.

-Domino machines reference directly from the workpiece itself. Unless your components are absolutely straight and square on all six sides, you'll end up with gaps around your joints. A Domino used in conjunction with cheap and cheerful machinery isn't a great combination because the quality of the final job is totally reliant on the fence on your planer, the cross cut stops on your table saw, or the ability of your mitre saw to make clean and accurate cuts.

 

[johnnyb]

Custard hits the nail...again!

 

[Eric The Viking]

I get it, absolutely.

I learned three rules a long time ago:

1. start with absolute squareness and flatness*,
2. measure extremely carefully (and use the same tool for measuring each time),
3. joinery first, before shaping.

There are possibly exceptions to (3) but in my very limited experience it's usually down to needing to cope something, so the shaping/profiling is sort-of part of the joinery.

I found a good example of joinery first on YouTube a while ago whilst researching Dominoes. A chap making a bed frame with a curved top rail and slats at each end: he used the really long reach of the Domino 700 to mortice the curved rails, whilst they were still rectangular, then cut the curves and on the bandsaw and scribed the slats to match. It worked really nicely (but he was _extremely_ cautious doing those deep mortices, and having hefted a 700 machine yesterday, I can see the reason for caution (JohnnyB mentioned it).

On which point, is it common to reference stock and machine together using the baseplate (on the benchtop)? I do that a lot with the biscuit jointer, and sometimes pack either the workpiece or the machine (2mm MDF usually) for slot position - it takes the wobble away! It also works when the stock is too thin to rest the aux fence securely on one side (the Makita's fence isn't the greatest either, and that chunky handle on the Domino's fence looks really sensible).

Everything is being noted, so please keep the thoughts coming.

E.

*woodworking values of these, obviously!

 

[Doug71]

You will love the Domino 700, I think it is possibly the best power tool money can buy.

I'm a big fan of the Domino and I've used both the 500 and 700 for many years, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as that.

I am not saying that the Domino is the answer to everything, it certainly has it's limitations as you say.

What I meant was taking in to account it's ease of use, build quality, excellent design and also mainly it's uniqueness I can't think of many hand held power tools that I could rate higher.

I managed without one for years and could manage again but it does make some things easier. You find new uses for it all the time, cutting out the mortises for door locks is one.

 

[HOJ]

Having bought into the 500 & 700 quite some time ago I changed my way of thinking, knowing how the domino can either work with you or against you in a construction process, for instance, I made some windows that were to go into a listed building, so had to match, to an extent the originals, these had fine glazing bars, and needed very small mortices and tenons, my solution in the end was to use the 500 to make all the joints, and make my own Dominoes from Accoya, I coped the ends of the bars first and used the Trim stop to align the 500, job done in no time.

And yes I could have done them by hand, and accept that the traditional methods have a place, and play a big part in generally what I do, but I try and work smarter now, not harder.

I managed without one for years and could manage again but it does make some things easier. You find new uses for it all the time, cutting out the mortises for door locks is one.

I agree with Doug71, and , for another use, I use a 700 to cut the slots in doors for Suffolk Latches.