Lamello Bisco Vs. beech biscuits.....discuss

[craigs]

Hi all, I appreciate the Zeta P2 is not the most popular tool, however before i rush out and buy a 4mm cutter and a bunch of beech biscuits I wondered how the plastic Bisco compare to traditional beech biscuits.

My first thoughts are that beech swell with glue and that plastic obviously doesn't and therefore the beech would provide a more effective glue area as well as a better fit, but then the plastic would be infinitely stronger...but then plastic and wood glue seems like a non starter.

Thoughts?

 

[Rich C]

Why would the plastic be stronger?

 

[craigs]

Why would the plastic be stronger?

this is just my basic non scientific method of being able to snap a 4mm beech biscuit, but not a 7mm plastic one. it might be different lathered in glue and stuffed in a slot.

 

[deema]

Your absolutely right, Absolutely dreadful machine, I can only suggest you send it to me for safe keeping!!
I’m putting pennies away for one myself!

 

[craigs]

Your absolutely right, Absolutely dreadful machine, I can only suggest you send it to me for safe keeping!!
I’m putting pennies away for one myself!

to be honest, I only pulled the trigger because it was £100 off at Axminster on the whole black friday thing.

 

[ColeyS1]

What was your reasoning in buying the p2 ? They sell a plain version of the connectors without the splines.


Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Jonathan S]

My local dealer tried to sell me one....yep it's a beautiful piece of engineering and would love one....but Ive yet to come up with a situation where I actually need one, so also intrested as to were it has its uses.



Sent from my SM-J530F using Tapatalk

 

[craigs]

What was your reasoning in buying the p2 ? They sell a plain version of the connectors without the splines.


Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

I dont actually have an answer that isn't shallow and nonsensical. Im building up a small tool arsenal ready for buying a house and making built-ins etc. looked like a cool addition with the tenso connectors.

 

[powertools]

Its got nothing to do with strength the plastic P2 connectors are made to be able to take apart
Peter Millard is your man he has done videos on this.

 

[ColeyS1]

Fair play ! The normal connectors need an 8mm wide groove but is easy enough to achieve with a suitable sized spacer and a normal biscuit joiner.(The mdf spacer is underneath the connectors in the picture

I've just ordered a couple of these biscuits to experiment with

They've got barbs on them so once pushed/hammered in they don't come out. May come in handy on complicated clamping arrangements.


Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Trevanion]

I think the main purpose of a biscuit is joint alignment rather than extra strength. Not to say it doesn't add a little bit of strength to keep from the joint opening, but I think the primary reason to put them in is to stop your glue-up from sliding all over the place and keep boards flush with each other.

If you wanted extra strength I suppose the Domino is the better machine.

 

[craigs]

@Trevanion I already have a domino I actually use it quite a lot

@ColeyS1 they do look sturdy, but lets say you are using one on a face frame, would you say that you lose effective glue surface due to the chunk o' plastic taking up a decent amount of area?

Im not sure im phrasing this correctly, it seems that if you use beech, theres more wood/glue surface which i would think would be better?

or maybe PU glue due to its gap filling properties would make a better joint than titebond in the use of these ?

 

[ColeyS1]

Pu glue will have no strength with gaps. It will fill the hole but that's about it.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[craigs]

Pu glue will have no strength with gaps. It will fill the hole but that's about it.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

never used it, have just seen some joiners on YT use it and thought it might have some benefit in this application

 

[ColeyS1]

The biscuit only takes away a tiny amount of gluing surface area, around 4mmx80mm. Then it adds much much more buying adding the extra gluing depth into the wood, if that makes sense. Plastic or wood biscuit would both perform equally as well imho. I personally think I'd rely only a wood to wood bond with.....wood glue, rather than to plastic. So many bloody options these days lol, it's a minefield !

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Trevanion]

I use PU daily, what Coley said is correct. It does indeed fill gaps, but there is no strength in the foam at all, but when two surfaces are tightly clamped there aren't many glues that can beat the bond strength.


Matthias Wandel has a good video on it:
[youtube]MUWu-N85oXM[/youtube]

Funnily enough in that test the regular PVA glue bonds slightly better with a gap!

 

[ColeyS1]

I think your best bet would be to buy a tool when you need it for a specific task. Worst case scenario you have to wait a few days for it to be delivered. Tools like that speed up the process on a production shop. 9 times out of ten there will be another way of achieving the same result with the tools you've already got or atleast much much cheaper.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[ColeyS1]

I use PU daily, what Coley said is correct. It does indeed fill gaps, but there is no strength in the foam at all, but when two surfaces are tightly clamped there aren't many glues that can beat the bond strength.


Matthias Wandel has a good video on it:
[youtube]MUWu-N85oXM[/youtube]

Funnily enough in that test the regular PVA glue bonds slightly better with a gap!

I'm not sure I agree with that but that could be an error on my part. I use pu for edge jointing softwood and tulip wood if I'm in a hurry. I haven't needed to use accoya so am yet to try it on that. My experience with using it on oak wasn't great.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[craigs]

The biscuit only takes away a tiny amount of gluing surface area, around 4mmx80mm. Then it adds much much more buying adding the extra gluing depth into the wood, if that makes sense. Plastic or wood biscuit would both perform equally as well imho. I personally think I'd rely only a wood to wood bond with.....wood glue, rather than to plastic. So many bloody options these days lol, it's a minefield !

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

And the winning answer goes to....... ^^^^

Thats what i was kinda thinking, for anything that already has a small glue area, then a 4mm wooden biscuit would be better (with wood glue, which is all i use). I guess the bisco are good for adding alignment to larger glue ups in conjunction with other connectors etc.

 

[craigs]

I think your best bet would be to buy a tool when you need it for a specific task. Worst case scenario you have to wait a few days for it to be delivered. Tools like that speed up the process on a production shop. 9 times out of ten there will be another way of achieving the same result with the tools you've already got or atleast much much cheaper.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

So the reason I pulled the trigger on it was a perfect storm, black friday knocking off £100, also the jubilee edition (dunno what that means) is coming to an end and the prices are going up in december. they came in stock at the right time so i just though fk it, take the hit now or a bigger hit later. im not saying i need it, i don't need half the crap i got