Festool Domino "loose" settings

[Blackswanwood]

Does anyone use the "loose" settings on the Festool Domino?

I'm finding that I don't need to - am I missing out on something/is there a benefit to using it?

 

[Doug B]

I use the setting a lot especially when gluing up panels as I’m using the dominos more for alignment rather than the strength they add to the joint & it means I don’t have to do a dry fit to ensure everything fits as the loose setting allows room for slight adjustment.
Infact I did just this earlier in the week on this small replacement table top

 

[Doug71]

I make my own dominos and often make some to fit the wider setting as sometimes a standard one isn't enough but two won't fit in!

 

[AJB Temple]

I do sometimes use the loose settings on one side. I try to mark as accurately as possible but sometimes if I am using double doms on jointing long and thick boards, having a bit of wiggle room is handy during the glue up. I don't think it matters much as once the domino is glued up within a glued joint, the slight gap makes no difference. When I've made drawers though with dominos (kitchen - lots) then I just have tight fit both sides.

 

[Doug B]

Thinking about it I also use the loosest setting when using the domino for cutting mortises for traditional mortise & tenon work as I’m just wanting to remove as much waste as quickly as possible prior to finishing off with a chisel.

 

[Blackswanwood]

Thinking about it I also use the loosest setting when using the domino for cutting mortises for traditional mortise & tenon work as I’m just wanting to remove as much waste as quickly as possible prior to finishing off with a chisel.

That’s a really neat idea Doug.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I make my own dominos and often make some to fit the wider setting as sometimes a standard one isn't enough but two won't fit in!

View attachment 192227

Do you do that on the router table Doug?

 

[Sideways]

I'm very new to the domino. Only just got one.
On first experiments, tight is absolutely that. Hammer tap in fit, I can't push a domino in by hand.
If you have an edge or some such to positively index the tool off, and get the holes to exactly line up, that's great.
If you have a row of multiple dominoes across the surface of a board when indexing isn't so straight forward, then a simple measure and pencil mark is not precise enough to match this tightness of fit. Festool have a possible aid but indexing one hole of the previous hole is also a bit naff, so that plastic accessory doesn't impress me much. Great opportunity for incremental error or for one mistake to throw off the position of all subsequent holes.

On my project, I wanted to use the dominos dry for strength and positioning, backed up with some long screws to make a knock down cabinet for the workshop. I ended up using some tight and some loose holes according to how certain I could be in placing them.
It was useful exposure to the quirks of the system.

All this led me to think that the " official " answer is a few strategic dowels drilled 'tight" to line everything up and the rest fitted loose to overcome the limitation of their positioning system.

The second thought was that domino has stagnated for the last several years and once it's out of patent, everyone else will quickly innovate and overcome some of the limitations that are obvious on day 1.

Slack settings are tight in one plane but even medium is absurdly sloppy side to side. +/- 3mm.
If medium was just +/- 1mm this would be way more useful. Most of us can carefully measure and mark to that tolerance and a gap filling adhesive can cope with 1 or 2 mm

 

[BucksDad]

Spectric coming to tell us about disappointed he is with the DF700 and its accuracy in 3...2...1

 

[Doug B]

Slack settings are tight in one plane but even medium is absurdly sloppy side to side. +/- 3mm.
If medium was just +/- 1mm this would be way more useful. Most of us can carefully measure and mark to that tolerance and a gap filling adhesive can cope with 1 or 2 mm

This is easily achieved by cutting the tight setting & just block planing the edges of the dominos, 3 or 4 swipes on each edge will give you a millimetre tolerance, this is something I’ve done on many occasions.

 

[Doug71]

Do you do that on the router table Doug?

I bullnose the edges on my spindle moulder but a router table would be fine.

I actually made a batch of 10mm dominos today for some face frames and doors I have to make. The proper Festool dominos are often quite tight so making your own allows a bit more of a user friendly fit, about 0.1mm clearance in thickness generally seems to allow a nice sliding fit.

Regarding the tight fit/wiggle room thing the theory is something like you put a tight hole at the end using the pins on the domino to reference off the end then do the rest on the slack setting, this means the end one locates things in the right place while the other ones don't need to be as accurate if that makes any sense.

 

[Spectric]

Spectric coming to tell us about disappointed he is with the DF700 and its accuracy in 3...2...1

I think @Sideways has summed up the issue that you get on the non loose setting,

If you have a row of multiple dominoes across the surface of a board when indexing isn't so straight forward, then a simple measure and pencil mark is not precise enough to match this tightness of fit.

But with the dowel jigs you do not get this issue and they are as tight and also like I have said previously competition leads to inovation and with the Festool patent it has stagnated as sideways also says.

The second thought was that domino has stagnated for the last several years and once it's out of patent, everyone else will quickly innovate and overcome some of the limitations that are obvious on day 1.

One fix that would solve the issue is so simple, just think of a base along the concept of a router where there is a rod for the fence, on the domino it would be for alignment.

 

[Sideways]

I make my own dominos and often make some to fit the wider setting as sometimes a standard one isn't enough but two won't fit in!

Darn !
I'm a guy who thinks router tables are grossly overrated but I've just realised that a custom table made just for profiling long narrow stock would be great for moulding custom dominoes to fit the tight, medium and sloppy domino setting.
The dark side beckons and it's all Doug's fault !

 

[Jake]

If you are using a few dominos close together, the loose setting is irrelevant. If you are using lots of them along a long edge, they lack the slip and slide of a biscuit, so the loose setting makes assembly a lot easier. The idea that this is a lack of precision in the tool rather than the user is a bit screw-loose. The problem is the slot and the domino being if anything too precise, but the user's placement being imprecise. The well-engineered solution is the looser setting to accomodate for user error. In that situation, anyone who thinks the little gaps around the ends of the dominos in looser slots makes any meaningful difference whatsover to real world performance of the joint in a dry indoor setting isn't being very rational.

Outdoor in the wet, I wouldn't want that. Even then with expanding poly glue filling the gap my guess is that it would still probably be as ok as any long glued edge.

 

[Jake]

One fix that would solve the issue is so simple, just think of a base along the concept of a router where there is a rod for the fence, on the domino it would be for alignment.

If you are desperate to avoid the loose setting, it's only a matter of constructing a simple jig to align the spacing off the side of the plate of the Domino, some blocks screwed to a batten would work. While searching for other Festool stuff on Ebay I saw 3D printed things designed to attach to a track saw rail intended to do the same thing (found it or something similar, here - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/186326619817). Seems a pricey and pointless gimmick to me really but if it makes it possible for you to use your expensive tool without freaking about vanishingly unlikely failure modes of joints if it not used only on the tight setting, they might be worth it.

 

[Sam Kilby]

If you are desperate to avoid the loose setting, it's only a matter of constructing a simple jig to align the spacing off the side of the plate of the Domino, some blocks screwed to a batten would work. While searching for other Festool stuff on Ebay I saw 3D printed things designed to attach to a track saw rail intended to do the same thing (found it or something similar, here - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/186326619817). Seems a pricey and pointless gimmick to me really but if it makes it possible for you to use your expensive tool without freaking about vanishingly unlikely failure modes of joints if it not used only on the tight setting, they might be worth it.

Yarp.

I would argue that if using them for boarding up solid timber, you are just introducing more things that could go wrong. They aren’t necessary for strength in most applications, so presumably they are only there for flushing up.. but with a mallet and/a couple of clamping cauls you can achieve near perfection too.. and you are skipping having to layout, cut, and indeed buy dominoes.

If you have to, just use spacers or make up a set of general purpose referencing blocks. Then re use them for almost every boarding up job.
If you really want to rely on pencil marks, it seems like some people above are measuring out and marking ? Measure out and mark a “rod stick” or “story stick” and use that for transferring the imperical truth onto your components.. you will find this the most accurate way to set out, if you have to set out that is.
For fake m&tenons most domino cutters have a little set of flaps that you can fold out for referencing.
Trad mortice and tenons the strength comes from the shoulder and the cheek, and they would build in a bit of slop vertically to allow you to allign things during a glue up.
So you probably ought to be doing and planning to do one side tight, one side mid slop in almost all applications if you ask me. But again is that prone for making mistakes and having to really think things through ?

 

[Spectric]

The dark side beckons and it's all Doug's fault !

A spindle moulder & power feed could produce these domino's very easily, also as @deema has mentioned you can get custom cutters made so that you could also groove them at the same time. Just need this profile and I dare say not that expensive.

If you are desperate to avoid the loose setting, it's only a matter of constructing a simple jig to align the spacing off the side of the plate of the Domino,

The side plate of the domino would need to be extremely precise so as referencing using either side is identical, this is what makes the dowel jigs deliver precisely located holes. The level of precision needed for oblong dowels is no different to round dowels and it is a simple task to achieve this with a dowelmax or the Jessem version.

Errors will sum, so the more holes the more chance of larger errors and the less chance of closing the joint, Festool have not provided a sloppy setting without reason, I bet the first prototypes they made did not have this feature but due to alignment issues it was a way round the problem to make it more user acceptable but they could have resolved the issue considering the cost of the machine. Once that domino patent expires you will probably see other brands on the market and hopefully deliver a better alignment method. I should say that the alignment in the vertical direction is not an issue because you have either the base or the fence to reference from and both are solid points of reference.

Measure out and mark a “rod stick” or “story stick” and use that for transferring the imperical truth onto your components.. you will find this the most accurate way to set out,

Yes the good old story stick, great for most applications but to get real precision you need to avoid the pencil line and just use a ruler / stop as a hard reference from the edge, it's what I do with the Jessem jig on some task.

 

[Blackswanwood]

Could I just say thanks for the responses to my question. I think that I'm probably eating up time in being "super precise" with pencil markings when using the loose setting would do. Several other good tips that I've also picked up from the answers. Much appreciated - thanks again.

 

[HOJ]

alignment issues it was a way round the problem to make it more user acceptable

I get the point of the "sloppy" setting on a domi, in my view, and I will be so bold as to suggest Festool did give it thought, with a consideration for when it comes to making cross/end grain joints with solid timber and allowing for movement and expansion and contraction, in which case it does have a meaningful purpose, that's they way I look at it and use it.

Looking at your picture @Spectric , with all those dowels, in the end grain, something will have to give, there is no allowance for it with that arrangement.

I was curious enough to look at the Dowelmax as an alternative to the domi, the setting up seems rather time consuming and fussy along with having to make allowance for any offsetting, either by the use of separate spacers and or/using a measured offset from a guide fence, when doing a mid panel joint, in one example I watched he had to measure and set it at 4.5mm, that's a tricky one! whereas with my 700 I know it's always 15mm off.

 

[Jake]

The side plate of the domino would need to be extremely precise so as referencing using either side is identical, this is what makes the dowel jigs deliver precisely located holes. The level of precision needed for oblong dowels is no different to round dowels and it is a simple task to achieve this with a dowelmax or the Jessem version.

View attachment 192281

No, you would just need to make your guide in a way that it can be rotated 180 so as to be referencing off the same thing both sides. Have you got evidence that the side plate is not precise or is that just feelz like your imagined scenario about when and why Festool introduced the loose setting?

The wood between each of those dowel holes is contributing very little to the strength of the joint, so all the apparent precision is a waste of time and energy. The end dowels are bizarrely and counterproductively close to the surface of the timber so have just introduced even more weakness. That's a very precise but very poor joint IMHO.