Domino joints for chairs?

[MikeG.]

Mike, Made with a Festool Domino

and..........?

 

[wizer]

My point is you can still spend lots of enjoyable man hours beautifully sculpting a piece of furniture and use a domino to join the parts without it being 'made by machine' or 'without craft'. Otherwise it's time to chuck away you bandsaw, no?

 

[big soft moose]

But isn't the whole point to occupy ourselves meaningfully until we die, and to do what we do with a bit of integrity?

not in my case - in my case (with the exception of turning) the point is to furnish the marital home with decent furniture that doesnt come from ikea , which we cant afford to buy and therefore has to be made. Or in the case of work to furnish the thames path and ridgeway with nice sign boards, finger posts, and benches which we also cant afford to buy and are therefore made by the volunteer scheme. If machines enable us to make the best possible use of ourt time then i'm all for them.

I can afford to go out and buy something from every single page in the Axminster catalogue.

I actually have a similar low level of machine tools though , simply because i am not in the financial position to do this, every machine or tool has to justify its cost and space and is not procured without first thinking do i need this or can i do the job adequately with the tools i have - for example i'm not going to buy a domino because for what i do a biscuit jointer is sufficient.

 

[wizer]

[not in my case - in my case (with the exception of turning) the point is to furnish the marital home with decent furniture that doesnt come from ikea ,

This is why I got in to woodworking and I need to keep reminding myself because, as yet, I've not built any furniture for the marital home.....

 

[SBJ]

Fun messing around in the shed though isn't it

 

[MikeG.]

not in my case - in my case the point is to furnish the marital home with decent furniture that doesnt come from ikea ,

This is why I got in to woodworking ....

et moi aussie.

 

[wizer]

Fun messing around in the shed though isn't it

So what we're all saying, is that we enjoy woodworking?

 

[Jake]

I can't get het up about process at all, I love using good tools whether they are motorised or not. I care far more about form and function. One downside of process-obsession in craft woodworking is that people stick (to my mind) too many unnecessary frilly bits on their pieces to prove the 'handcrafted process' when the piece would have looked better without them to my eyes.

 

[crackerjack]

wow - i didn't expect all those answers

I've got two young kids and the missus doesn't like me spending too much time in the shed so what little time I do get to do some joinery I have to be as productive as possible. I reckon the domino will enable me to get more done in as short sessions.

Seems pretty unanimous that the domino will be okay for chairs

Jack

 

[woodbloke]

They might only replace the m&t or the dowel in your eyes........in mine, they replace the craft.

Mikey, Mikey :lol: :lol: ...you need to drag yourself kicking and screaming into the 21st century (the vision of a Luditte is clouding my vision here, along with the second dram of the evening)
You'd have fitted in well with Sydney Barnsley (as discussed on John's Hayrake thread on the other forum)
Buy some decent planes to enjoy the craft a bit more (from the Axminster catalogue, like the rest of us :wink: ) and move on! :lol: :lol: - Rob

 

[PAC1]

I am with Mike on the subject of the craft. It is important that craftsmen know how to cut a mortice and tennon joint and a dovetail with skill and efficiency. Thereafter they can go and make as many chairs as possible with the fesdrool gadget. But in 200 hundred years I would like to think someone is having this same debate about mortice and tennon joints

 

[Benchwayze]

The tools don't make the worker and I once considered my Stanleys as adequate. They were; until I tried out a high-end plane. I realised that better tools, do make a difference; to the work and to the enjoyment of it.

As for a Domino. If I had one I could make a set of six diners and two carver chairs in next to no time!

I did it in the 1960's, using hand-methods. I didn't even have a router. What I did have was time! Now I don't have so much time left to me and whatever I want to make, health permitting, I have to get on with it. So if I replace those chairs, (and they need replacing), I might buy a Domino. I doubt it, but I might.

For my Hayrake Table, I'll use Mike's 'proper joints'. But I will cut the mortices with a hollow-square chisel. I can do the chairs like that too. The joints will still be proper M&Ts!

So it's a case of what I want to make; how much time I have, and my levels of skill. The main thing is, as Wizer intimated. I enjoy the craft.

But Mike, at least visit a tool shop, or maybe a 'bash', and try out some of these high end planes. They are just planes and they're used by hand. I don't think you would be on the slope, but you might have to admit they are better. :wink:

Regards
John

 

[BradNaylor]

wow - i didn't expect all those answers

I've got two young kids and the missus doesn't like me spending too much time in the shed so what little time I do get to do some joinery I have to be as productive as possible. I reckon the domino will enable me to get more done in as short sessions.

Seems pretty unanimous that the domino will be okay for chairs

Jack

I think what Jack's saying is that he just wants to make some bloody chairs!

I like you and respect your views Mike, but I do find a lot of this 'Arts and Crafts' philosophy a load of pretentious bollocks.

There is nothing intrinsically 'better' about a piece of furniture made entirely by hand than one one that pops off the end of a production line. There is no more 'integrity' in a hand-cut M&T or dovetail than in a Dom joint. They are just different ways of connecting two bits of wood together.

I appreciate that you are talking about hobby rather than commercial woodwork, but even if I was doing it purely for my own satisfaction I think I would be more interested in the form and function of the finished piece than the mechanics of how it was assembled. My wife certainly would be!

However, I defend your right to use slow and obselete techniques if that's what really floats your boat...

 

[woodbloke]

a lot of this 'Arts and Crafts' philosophy a load of pretentious bollocks.

It is basically, but too be fair, you need to realize where the A&C movement was coming from and that was a complete 180deg reversal from the gross over ornamentation and machine made stuff of the late Victorians to a much more simplified and honest approach. That they went completely overboard is to be expected and gradually the pendulum has swung back somewhere towards the middle...if you follow the drift.
That's why I agree that a dom system of construction is fine and to be applauded for use in A&C furniture. As you rightly say Brad, it's only a way of joining two sticks of wood together - Rob

 

[MikeG.]

As you rightly say Brad, it's only a way of joining two sticks of wood together - Rob

So, in 20 years time a home hobbyist can sit at his computer and make a 3D sketchup-up-type model, push a button, and then just go and feed wood into his 5 way CNC router ...........all that will be left to do will be to apply glue and cramp it up. After wiping on a bit of oil you guys will still be saying that this is fine? It's the result that counts?

Great, but you're on a different planet from mine.

Mike

 

[PAC1]

Brad wrote:
"They are just different ways of connecting two bits of wood together."

Yes but at the moment the craftsman knows how to do both and can choose which method to use.

I did my apprenticeship 30 years ago and I am able to carry out a range of skills from building a traditional hipped roof to building a complex staircase. Today I have 7 sheets of MDF my tablesaw and biscuit jointer to convert the MDF into a built in wall unit for a plasma TV and lots of storage. There will not be a M&T involved not even in the doors!

We need skilled craftsmen who can build a traditional hipped roof and know all the methods of jointing wood so that they have the ability to do the work if needed and knowledge to make the right choice.[/quote]

 

[Alf]

Mike, were you into woodworking while John Brown was still kicking around his ideas in Good Woodworking magazine? Because I'm much reminded of him, and the responses you're getting are very similar to the letters they used to get in response to JB's articles. Mind you, he eventually owned a coupla LN planes iirc, so you've still got a bit of a way to go. :wink:

Reckon half the joy of woodworking is how different folks can get different things out of it. I like the history and the journey; someone else will view the end product as the important bit. Vive la différence sez I, in a dodgy French accent... :lol:

 

[MikeG.]

Mike, were you into woodworking while John Brown was still kicking around his ideas in Good Woodworking magazine?

I don't know Alf! I've been woodworking for about 30 years, and have only ever read woodworking magazines in dentists waiting rooms I am self taught, and until 2 or 3 years ago thought I was the only person in Britain who retreated into my shed at any opportunity to play with wood. I'm afraid I still don't know who John Brown is or was.

Mike

 

[Benchwayze]

Mike:

“By all means read what the experts have to say.
Just don’t let it get in the way of your woodworking.”
— John Brown, welsh stick chairmaker



http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/bl ... 22008.aspx
Regards
John

 

[Alf]

That's the fellow; between us, Chris and I managed to get together all his articles a few years ago but I'd still give a limb to have them all brought together in a book. He was just a bit too far ahead of the curve with his Anarchist Woodworker idea, but it'd go down a storm now.