Homemade dominos VS festool dominos

[fobos8]

Hi all

Just started making some chairs using my domino to do the rail to leg joints. I'm finding that the glue surface area is a bit limited using the supplied domino sizes so I reckon I'm gonna make some wider ones myself - 8mm thick, 54mm long, and 50mm wide. This gives a much larger gluing area (30% more) than say 2 x 8mm dominos, 50mm long and 21mm wide.

I'm just gonna use scraps of oak mainly that I have lying around, thickness them to 8mm, round over the edges, put a groove in the middle for glue to escape and bingo!!

Surely they be as good as the Festool ones?? Or is there something special about them??

Regards, Andrew

 

[Paul Chapman]

Or is there something special about them??

Only the price

A Domino is simply a loose tenon so home-made ones should be just as good IMHO.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[fobos8]

have read elsewhere that the grooves in the beech dominos expand when they come into contact with glue thereby "locking" the domino in place.

I tested this with some glue and calipers and neither the grooves or the rest of the domino expands at all.

... so I cannot see any advantage of using the Festool ones

homemade ones it is

 

[Chems]

No they don't expand, thats to let the glue squeeze past. Someone did a test putting them in water, they never expanded at all.