Festool Domino Machine Instruction Manual

Getting the Most From the Festool

Domino Machine

Text and Photos by Jerry Work

For many woodworkers the construction of a butterfly leaf dining table like the small one
shown here is considered a rite of passage because it is very difficult to do correctly.
The table tops slide apart to reveal a self storing leaf that folds in the middle. By pulling
up on one half of the leaf both halves rise up to perfectly align with the table top both on
the flat top surface as well as along each edge. Then the two halves of the top slide to­gether to engage the butterfly leaf in its deployed position.

Properly executed,
this operation is a
thing of beauty in
and of itself. Most
people watching a
butterfly leaf table
open for the first
time seem to be
transfixed as they
watch everything
side so effortlessly
into perfect align­ment. And, watching
the leaf fold down
and store below the
table top is no less
captivating.

I often caution my
customers to be
prepared for the first
dinner party on their
new table. If the
guests see the butterfly leaf deploy, they
usually will stand around opening and

closing it time after
time just because it
is fun and interesting
to do.

Using conventional
tools and techniques
it is very difficult to
get all the pivot
points in exactly the
right places so de­signing and building
such a table can be
quite complex and
intimidating. But, as
we will see while we
follow the construc­tion of the table
shown here from
start to finish, using
the innovative Fes­tool Domino ma-

chine and the self
aligning, self squaring and self locking
features of the sliding dovetail joint, build-

ing tables such as this one are well within
your grasp whether you are a hobbyist
just starting out or a seasoned furniture
maker with years of experience under
your belt.

The Domino machine is the key.

Also in this manual we will follow the con­struction of a conventional four leg with
side skirt style of table, an upright chest
with gracefully flaring legs and sliding
doors, and a unique “convertible” coffee
table that can quickly change look and
function.

All of these are easy to build by using
the Domino machine and are all within
your reach as well.

How should we describe this innova­tive tool?

to precisely aligning two or more compo­nents during assembly operations, to
making hidden latches, stops and door
slides, and much more.

As you progress through this manual I
think you will enjoy seeing examples of all
of these uses and the opportunity to learn
more about this truly remarkable and
unique woodworking tool.

Early in the U.S. introduction planning I
was asked by Festool USA how I
thought the machine should be de­scribed. Because I had lots of experi­ence with loose tenon joinery using the
three dimensional sliding table on my
industrial slot mortising machine, I first
described it in those terms. At that time I
wrote that I would describe the Domino
machine as, “a portable loose tenon
jointer with great positional accuracy.”
And, as we will discover moving through
this manual, it certainly is that.

However, as I used the Domino machine
on more and different projects, it evolved
in my head to something much more than
those words could capture. The Domino
machine solves a whole range of wood­working issues from joining two pieces of
wood in all six ways one can joint two
pieces together, to handling a myriad of
wood movement problems that are al­ways a part of building with solid woods,

The author, Jerry Work, designs
and hand crafts fine furniture in
the 1907 Masonic Temple build­ing in historic Kerby, OR, where
visitors are always welcome.

[e-mail]

www.jerrywork.com

What is a Domino Machine?

Let’s begin by exploring the tool
itself. It is made up of a body
with a unique mechanism that
both rotates and oscillates a
drill-like cutter bit. The body
slides nearly effortlessly on two
hardened steel shafts built into
the fence section of the tool.

Once aligned where you want
the cut to be made, you push
the body towards the work piece
to produce an elongated slot,
most commonly called a “mor­tise.”

The Domino machine fence and
positioning systems allow you to
center that slot both horizontally
and vertically very accurately.
Built into the machine are adjust­ments for the width and the depth of the
slot. The cutters can be interchanged
easily and quickly and come in 5mm,
6mm, 8mm and 10mm diameters produc­ing slots of those widths.

The pictures on this page show the Dom­ino in broad view. As we come in closer
with the detailed photos on the next few
pages we will see the many precise ad­justments and alignment aids.

The idea is to cut a mortise slot
into which you can insert a pre­made wooden tenon which Fes­tool calls a “domino,” hence the
name of the machine.

You can make your own if you
want to, but the pre-made Fes­tool tenons are extremely
strong, very precisely dimen­sioned to fit perfectly into the
mortise slot cut by the Domino
machine and they are quite
economical to buy. My recom­mendation is to simply use the
Festool dominos and not try to
reinvent that wheel on your own.

The Domino Body

This sequence of photos shows how the
body and fence can easily be separated
by simply raising the lock tab as shown
here. The wrench used to change cutters

is ideal for this. Hook the edge of the
wrench beneath the lock tab and lift it up.

The fence will start to slide off the body
as shown in the photos left and above
exposing the rotating and oscillating cut­ter (red arrow).

In the photo above you can see the two
hardened shafts (green arrow pointing to
the right shaft) that the body slides on as
you push the body in to cut the mortise
slot. They ensure the mortise slot will be
exactly parallel to the base of the Domino
machine, one of the keys to Domino’s
impressive accuracy.

Here is a view of the under side of the
body. The round housing held by the four
screws is gear driven to move the cutter
tip back and forth in a horizontal arc while
the cutter is also rotated to make the cut.

The cutters can be easily changed as
they just screw onto the threaded end of

the gear-driven shaft as shown by these
photos.

comes with the set of domino te­nons.

Above, the wrench is positioned on the
flats of the cutter tip. The shaft lock but­ton is on the side of the Domino body
right where the thumb on one hand can
easily press it while you loosen or tighten
the cutter with the wrench held in the

The photo below shows the cutters with

other hand. In the photo above I moved
my thumb down so you can see the shaft
lock lever (red arrow).

The cutters are available in four different
diameters, 5, 6, 8 and 10mm. The 5mm
cutter comes standard with the machine
itself and the four cutter set shown above

their respective Domino tenons for size
comparison.

Depth of cut is controlled by a lever on
the side of the Domino body (red arrow
above and in detail below). Settings
are for depths of cut of 12, 15, 20, 25
and 28mm. This is the depth meas­ured from the front of the fence to the
bottom of the mortise. Lift the black
safety catch and move the green depth
lever to align with the desired depth of
cut. To allow for some glue build up in
the bottom of the mortise as the tenon

shorter than the depth of the
corresponding mortise.

The top green knob turns to
set the desired width of cut.
Three settings are provided.
The narrowest width (the set­ting shown below) matches
the supplied domino tenon for
each domino (tenon) thick­ness. The 5mm thick domi­ons are just under 19mm wide
scaling up to the just under
23mm width of the 10mm

is inserted, the actual length of the Fes­tool supplied tenons is about 1.5mm

thick dominos.

At the minimum width of cut setting
(the way the width knob is set in this
photo) the cutter bit oscillation is

13.7mm. With a 5mm cutter bit the
overall cut mortise slot will be 13.7 + 5
= 18.7mm wide, nominally 19mm.

Move the knob to the intermediate
width of cut setting and the oscillation
increases from 13.7mm to 19.2mm

resulting in a slot 24.5mm wide for the

5mm cutter bit. The tenon still fits tightly

into the sides of the
mortise slot, but the
slot is longer than the
width of the tenon al­lowing some assembly
adjustment room side
to side. The third width
setting increases the
oscillation to 23.2mm
resulting in a 28.2mm
mortise slot which pro­vides close to 10mm
side to side adjustment
room.

The ability to vary the
slot width is key to
many of the Domino
machine attributes. As
indicated, at the narrow
setting the domino tenon fits tightly into
the slot. At the wider settings the thick­ness of the domino tenon fits tightly into
the mortise slot front to back, but the
domino tenon is free to shift side to side.

We will see numerous examples of when
and where you want to use tight fitting or
over-width mortise slots as we progress
through the manual and show actual pro­jects in process.

When you cut a tight mortise (width knob
at the narrowest setting) at the same lo­cation on two different boards, that one
M&T joint will keep the two boards
aligned as desired. Placing wider mortise
slots along the same face of one of the
two boards means the remaining domino
mortise slots can be cut with some mar­gin for positional error while still allowing
the joint to close properly, a great advan­tage over dowel joints where the posi­tional accuracy must be dead on or the
joint simply will not close up at all.

Since the majority of the strength of a
loose tenon joint is derived from the fit
and glue surface on the faces of the mor­tise slot and the faces of the tenon, little
strength is lost when the width of the mor­tise is greater than the width of the tenon.

The Domino Fence

Now let’s look at the adjustments on the
fence part of the Domino machine. In this
photo we are looking at the back side of
the fence with the body removed. You
can see one of the two hardened steel
rods that the body slides on as it moves
the cutter in and out of the work piece
keeping the mortise slot parallel with the
base of the fence.

10mm above the centerline of the cutter.
A lock lever secures the fence at the de­sired height. The fence moves up and
down on machined ways so it remains
exactly parallel with the cutter at all
heights.

The first adjustment to consider is the

height the fence is above the horizontal
centerline of the cutter. That is shown

by a scale and pointer. In the close up
photo below the fence is set to be exactly

For rapidly setting the fence to common
heights above the horizontal centerline of
the bit, a stop block (shown in detail
above) is provided that slides back and
forth to reveal different step heights. The

fence sits on the top of a stop
block step, positioning it exactly
an indicated distance above the
horizontal centerline of the cutter.

The stop block (shown here at a
setting of 20mm) is marked in

units corresponding to the overall

thickness of the work piece for
which the cutter will be exactly
centered. In this case the stop

block is set for a 20mm thick work
piece resulting in the pointer
(photo left) indicating that the cen­terline of the cutter will be at
10mm.

The stop block is marked to center the
bit on work pieces 16, 20, 22, 25, 28, 36
and 40mm thick.

You can also simply use the height
scale to set the fence any distance you
want it to be above the horizontal cen­terline of the bit within the range of 7mm
to 30mm.

The minimum height of 7mm ensures
that a 10mm cutter will leave a minimum
of 2mm of wall between the upper side
of the mortise slot and the upper side of
the work piece so you don’t inadvertently
drive the cutter into the bottom side of the
fence.

The fence also rotates from 90 degrees
angle relative to the edge of the work

piece (meaning the fence is parallel with
the cutter) to zero degrees relative to the
edge of the work piece (meaning the cut­ter is moving perpendicular to the fence
the way it is shown in the photo left).

Ball detent stops are also provided for

common in­termediate
settings, or
you can sim­ply set the
angle with the
protractor
scale and
pointer. The
pointer is ad­justable so
you can cali­brate the an­gles to be
dead on.

Now let’s look
at the variety
of alignment
marks to help
you place the
mortise slots
exactly where
you want
them.

This first photo is looking at the front of
the Domino fence with the fence piece
raised to the zero degree angle for clarity
of view. The slot in the center towards
the bottom (red arrow) is where the cutter

emerges when the body is pushed to­wards the work piece to make the mortise

cut. The cutter centerline is 10mm up

from the base of the fence assembly
(green arrow above).

Two alignment pins are spring loaded and
are set 74mm apart so each is 37mm
from the centerline of the cutter.

The right and left spring loaded alignment
pins are shown in detail below. The right
pin is mounted in an eccentric with a
screwdriver slot by which you can turn
the eccentric to bring the two pins into

exact alignment the same distance

from the vertical centerline of the
cutter. The left pin is fixed in posi­tion 37mm from the vertical center­line of the cutter and 24mm from the
outside of the pin to the outside
edge of the fixed portion (base) of
the fence (blue arrow).

The pins are 5mm in diameter so
the base is machined to be 132mm

wide or 66mm from outside edge to

vertical center of cutter. All of these
measurements are very useful to
keep in mind as they each can play
a role in helping you precisely posi­tion the center of the Domino mor-

tise slots.

When you first get your machine, make
sure the adjustable fence height pointer is
exactly on 10mm when the fence is on
the stop block marked 20mm, the angle
pointer is exactly on mark, and the dis­tance between the two spring loaded pins
is 74mm. Adjust the right pin shown be­low if necessary.

The vertical centerline of the cutter is also
marked in several other ways (red ar­rows) as well: by the “V” cast into the
fence base, by the line scribed on the
clear plastic
reference
scale attached
to the moving
portion of the
fence (note
the hole in the
plastic denot­ing center),
and the point
of the triangle
cast into the
moving portion
of the fence.

The outer two
triangles
(green arrows)
cast into the
moving portion of the fence have points
that are exactly 74mm apart, the same

as, and aligned with, the inside edges of

the spring loaded alignment pins (blue
arrows).

There is yet one further set of marks de­noting the vertical centerline of the cutter.
These are scribed on the bottom of the

base of the fence (the fixed portion). I
placed a rule on the inverted base of the
fence for the bottom left photo so you can
see the centerline of the cutter lined up

with 37mm

on the rule.
The left end
lines up
with the
mark for
the inside
of the left
spring
loaded
alignment
pin while
the mark
denoting
the inside
of the right
alignment
pin is at
74mm.

5mm beyond the left end of the rule and
the 74mm mark are lines denoting the

outside edges of the alignment pins.

Two additional sets of scribe lines are set
15mm from the vertical centerline of the
bit (the shorter lines) and 20mm from the
bit center (the longer lines).

The photos above show
the clear plastic alignment
scale that tilts with the

moving portion of the fence. As we saw
earlier, the center scribe line with the cir­cle cut through it is the horizontal center
of the bit oscillation movement and hence
is the side to side center of any mortise
slot cut with any bit. Long scribe lines are
10mm increments (yellow arrow) while
the shorter lines are 1mm and 5mm in­crements on this clear plastic guide.

Here is a picture of the guide taken from
above the fence when it is lowered to the
horizontal position parallel with the bit os­cillation. In use, it is quite visible and I
am constantly impressed by just how
close I can set the Domino mortise slot
with just this visual reference.

Once you start using the Domino you will
quickly learn to trust the marks and, so
long as you lay out your mortise slots
around centerline measurements, you
can achieve great accuracy and also do
all kinds of offsets using just your layout
mark and these several methods of align­ing the Domino.

The spring loaded pins are especially fast
and accurate. By hooking one of the pins
over an end or edge of your work piece,
you will place a mortise slot centered ex-

actly 37mm from that edge no matter

what size cutter you use or what slot
width setting you choose.

Take the case of an end to edge joint
such as creating a 90 degree joint which

properly lines up the outside

edge of both pieces. Set
the fence height to place
the mortise slot where you
want it on the edge and end
of the work pieces, set the
depth of cut you want and
set the slot width to the nar­rowest mark (shortest white
icon of the three surround­ing the green round width
adjustment knob). Hook the

alignment pin over the end

of one piece and make the
mortise cut in that edge.
Next hook the pin over the

edge of the mating piece

and make the cut into that

end. Put the Domino tenon
in place and the edges of the joint will be
perfectly aligned with no layout marking
on your part at all.

It is that easy!

Before we move on to look at all six ways
that two boards can be joined and see
how these various alignment marks and
pins are used to precisely position your
M&T Domino joints, there are three more
positioning aids we need to examine. All
come standard with the Domino Set (574-

283). If you want just the machine itself
with only a 5mm bit, that is item number
574-258.

The first is a two part fence extender.
One part attaches to each side of the
Domino fence and each features a mov­able spring loaded reference pin and nu­meric scale. They attach by a clever
dovetail machined into each side of the

In the photo above the inside edge of
the spring loaded pin is set to be 150mm
away from the horizontal center of the
mortise slot. The red arrows show the
alignment scale and pointer.

In the close-up below the pin is set so it
would register the work piece to position

Domino base as shown in the photo be­low taken from the bottom of the base.

the mortise slot 105mm away from the
edge of the work piece that rests against
the stop pin.

The second very useful positioning ac-

cessory is a saddle fence that attaches

to the bottom of the moving portion of the
fence. Here the Domino body is removed
from the fence to make it easier to see.

the in-out motion of the cutter (yellow ar­row). They capture and hold the edges of
the work piece making it easy to cut mor­tises in the end grain. The green knobs
secure the fences in the desired position,

The saddle fence slides onto the fence

and locks in place via the two black
knobs and metal fingers (green arrow).

The photo above right shows the bottom
of the saddle fence. It features two mov­able fence elements that run parallel with

and on top (detail below), is a scale that

indicates how far away those fence sides
are from the vertical center of the mortise
slot.

Want to cut a 10mm mortise in the center
of the end of a 20mm x 50mm work

piece? Set the fence to 10mm high and
set the two sides of the saddle fence to
25mm as shown above. The resulting
mortise will be exactly centered in the

end grain no matter which cutter you use
or which width setting you select. Neat!

The third accessory is for stabilizing the
Domino machine when used upright cut­ting into the face of a work piece regis­tered off of an edge. It is an auxiliary
fence that screws to the bottom of the

Now that we are familiar with the
Domino machine and the variety
of ways to accurately register the
location of the mortise slot, let’s
take a look at the six ways you
can join two pieces of wood to­gether.

Then we will move on
to several build-along
projects that show the
amazing versatility of
this innovative wood
working tool.

moving portion of the Domino fence.
This photo shows it installed with the
fence set to 45 degrees. Right is a
photo showing the auxiliary fence
before it is mounted to the bottom of
the moving portion of the Domino
fence, shown here set at zero de­grees (perpendicular to the move­ment of the cutter.)

There are only six ways you
can join two pieces of wood
together.

I will refer to the surfaces of a board
as the faces (the wide flat top and
bottom of the board), the edges (the
sides of the board) and the ends.

Boards can be joined:

1) edge-to-edge

2) face-to-face

3) end-to-end

4) edge-to-face

5) end-to-face

6) end-to-edge

Do that on both boards. Since the spring
loaded pins set the horizontal mortise
center and the fence sets the vertical
mortise slot center, the ends and the
faces of the two boards will be perfectly
aligned. In the photo above you can see
that I mark the end aligned with the
spring loaded pin with an “X” mark. That
mortise is centered 34mm in from the
edge.

Edge-to-edge is a common op-

eration any time you need a
board wider than the stock you
have on hand. We usually call
that a “glue up” or a “panel
joint.”

Reinforcing and properly align­ing this edge-to-edge joint is
easy, very fast and very precise
with the Domino machine. Set
the slot width to narrow, the
fence to 90 degrees and the
fence height to half the work
piece edge thickness. Hook the
pin over one end of each piece
to be joined while pressing the
fence down on the face of what
is to be the top or good surface
of the glue up. Turn on the Domino ma­chine and push the body towards the
work piece until it bottoms out at the de­sired depth of cut to machine the mortise
slot.

I suggest you always work with the
fence on the top or “good” surface of
your work pieces so those faces will
align even if the two work pieces are
not exactly the same thickness.

Add additional Domino mortises along the
edges of each board using either of two
methods. First you can use the excellent
two part fence extender (called a “side
stop” in Festool literature) we saw earlier.
Set the pin spacing to match the desired
mortise to mortise spacing. By hooking
the alignment pin in the edge of the mor­tise you just cut, the next mortise will be
spaced over by that amount. Progress
across both board with the same settings
and the mortises will all align perfectly.

You also can align by just marking the
desired locations with a pencil line across
both boards. Leave the slot width set to
narrow and cut mortises with the bit cen­ter mark aligned with each of your pencil
lines on one of the two boards to be
joined. Reset the slot width to the wider
slot setting and cut the remaining mortise
slots in the second board (shown in the
photo at the top of the previous page).

Since the first mortise slot in each board
is the same width as the Domino tenon,
that one M&T joint will align the two
boards end to end. The slightly wider
mortise slots you cut for the remaining
mortises in the second board will offset
any minor misalignment that might be
present, allowing the two edges of the
boards to come tightly together with the
faces perfectly aligned.

The Domino mortise slot to Domino tenon
fit is much tighter than is the case with a
biscuit jointer so the face to face align­ment is much better. The Domino tenons
are also a lot stronger, set deeper and
provide more glue surface area than a
biscuit so a Domino reinforced edge-to­edge joint is superior in every way to an
equivalent biscuit edge-to-edge joint in
my experience.

While you can cut these Domino mortise
slots at any height down the edge from
the face of the boards, conventional “wis­dom” would have you place them in the
middle of the two work pieces to be
joined. Usually the recommendation is
to use a tenon one third the thickness of
the work pieces to be joined thereby leav­ing an edge to slot width the same as the
tenon width.

In working with Dominos I find I prefer to

use a Domino that is half, rather than one

third, the thickness of the work pieces to
be joined. The Domino tenons do not
swell up the way biscuits can and the
grain runs the length of the Domino te­non. Since the Domino penetrates into
the edge of the work piece a relatively
long way (anywhere from 15 to 25mm
depending on the tenon length you use,)
the bending moment is spread over
enough distance that even on a stressed
joint the relatively thinner wall provides
plenty of support.

Now let’s look at the case of a common

end-to-edge joint, such as you find in rail

and stile work.

Because it is so easy to calculate dimen­sions in my head this way, I commonly
use rail and stile components that are
50mm wide by 20mm thick and panel
slots are 10mm wide by 10mm deep and
centered on the 20mm thick work piece
edges or ends.

A Domino mortise and tenon centered on
the 20mm thickness of my work pieces
matches these standards perfectly. And,
I can reinforce the glued up 10mm thick
panels by using a 5mm centered Domino
mortise and tenon.

In the example shown on this page the
R&S components are Purple Heart while
the panels are Maple Burl.

If the joint is a stressed joint, such as the
corners of a door, then I like to put an

well. And, by having glue on both sides
of the trapped narrow 1mm tongue wall,
the joint is incredibly strong.

In the photo left my finger points to the
joint going together and above is a photo
of a panel being inserted into a three
panel R&S assembly that was made this
way.

Below is a cut away of a door done
this way to show how the precise po­sitioning the Domino machine pro­vides can quickly and easily cut what
many would consider a most difficult
joint - three 8mm M&Ts cut inside
three 10mm tongue and groove joints,
all perfectly aligned!

8mm Domino M&T inside the 10 x 10mm

tongue and groove cut into the rail and
stile pieces as shown above. The 10mm
tongue is cut into the rail piece and the 10
x 10mm groove cut into the stile piece.
The 8mm Domino mortise is cut into the
middle of the groove and the middle of
the tongue (top photo).

The Domino M&T not only strengthens
this joint, it also automatically aligns it as

Just for fun here is an edge-to-edge joint
used to join two thick pieces of maple
together to make a fancy countertop
chopping block.

Waterproof glue and four 10mm x 50mm
Domino tenons make sure this chopping

The Domino machine makes a
fast, secure & hidden joint with­out that fuss.

block will never separate. The waney
edges add interest while the large
breadboard end dovetailed to the body
prevents any bowing or warping.

The dovetailed feet keep the bottom off
the countertop.

I would not consider making this piece
using biscuits as I would be concerned
about joint strength. Over the life of this
piece it will be hit with everything from a
meat cleaver to a tenderizing hammer
and it will be in and out of cleaning water
constantly.

BD (before Domino, grin) the only way I
could do this was to either use a spline or
a sliding dovetail to hold the two pieces
together.

Now back to the edge-to-edge joints....

One tenon centered on the edge of each
work piece is usually more than strong
enough given the strength of modern

glues. If your application demands ex­ceptional strength and the work pieces
are more than 3.5 x the thickness of the
tenon you intend to use, I suggest setting
two tenons, each centered the tenon
thickness down from each face if the two
work pieces are exactly the same thick­ness. (For exceptionally stressed joints
in thick material that is at least 5x the
thickness of the tenon, set two tenons
centered 1.5x the tenon thickness down
from each face).

If the work pieces are not the same thick­ness, put the first tenon centered the te­non thickness down from the top or
“good” face and the other tenon down far
enough to be centered about the tenon
thickness above the bottom of the thin­nest of the two work pieces.

auxiliary spring loaded pins to position
the Domino mortise slot(s).

If your work pieces are exactly the same
width, you can work from both edges. If
they are not, register all cuts from the
same edge so that one edge will be
properly aligned even if the other edge is
not.

A variation on an end-to-end joint is
strengthening a mitered end joint like the
one shown here cut in African Blood
Wood (some­times called
“Sealing Wax
Wood” be­cause of the
rich, red natu­ral color).

Make all of the Domino mortise cuts with
the fence held firmly to the top or “good”
face of each work piece. That way the
good faces will be properly aligned and
the tenons will fit together nicely to pro­duce superior joint strength to what you
would have if you used just one tenon
centered on the edges.

End-to-end joints.

For these, mount the saddle
fence if your work pieces are
each less than 70mm wide.
Each saddle fence can be posi­tioned 35mm away from the
horizontal mortise center thus
accommodating up to 70mm
material.

If the work pieces are more
than 70mm wide then use either
the built in spring loaded align­ment pins hooked over one
edge to align the two ends and/
or mount the two wings with the

The ability to
swing the
fence over a
90 degree arc range is really handy for
this cut.

Match the angle to the mortise angle, in
this case 45 degrees. Set the depth of
cut and the height of the fence to be sure
you do not cut the Domino mortise

through to the good side of your work
pieces. Usually that will mean placing the
mortise below the joint center as shown
on the previous page and using a short
tenon. This is where the 12mm cut depth
setting is really handy.

Edge-to-face joints are common when

you want to mount one piece of wood
perpendicular to another like putting a
fixed shelf between two sides of a chest.
This is simple and easy to do remember­ing that the bit center is 10mm above the
base of the Domino machine. A board
clamped across the side pieces 10mm
back from your desired centerline will po­sition the bit to cut the mortise on the
sides to wind up centered on a 20mm
shelf.

Here I am getting ready to do something
similar, but with a significant twist.

You may need even more pocket
hole clearance for some woods.

one piece aligned with the face of the
other, I am using four Domino M&Ts

without glue to hold the alignment (red

arrow), and pocket hole screws with
elongated screw holes (green arrow) to
actually hold the two pieces tightly to­gether while still allowing one to slide

enough relative to the other....a very

handy trick to keep in mind.

While it may be hard to see in these small
photos, one of these work pieces is a
solid wood glue up (the bottom piece in
the lower photo) with grain
running up and down while
the other is a rail and stile
with the stile grain running
across the wide grain of the
glued up panel. We will
see why this configuration
is needed when we get to
the pedestal desk build­along project a bit later.

But, given the long grain to
cross grain construction,
we certainly cannot glue
this joint or the expansion/
contraction of the glued up
panel would fracture the
glue joint in a year or less.

One final note on joining two pieces of
wood. Where even more strength is
needed than you think would be supplied

To avoid this problem while
still keeping the edge of

by one or two Domino placed along the
thickness of the edge, it is good practice
to stack Dominos using multiple sets in
the same joint.

to side the joint edge closest to the point
of force is placed in tension while the side
of the joint furthest from the point of force
is placed in tension. The shorter the dis-

This photo (supplied by Festool) shows
one example. The leg to base joint uses
eight Dominos stacked in a 2 x 4 array
while the leg to stretcher joint uses six
Dominos stacked in a 2 x 3 array.

The more Dominos you use the greater
the glue surface area, the greater the
Domino surface area, and the greater the
strength.

Joints like this try to fail by the racking
load applied. As the table is pushed side

tance between the edge of the leg (in this
example) and the edge of the Domino,
the less bending stress there is and the
more pull out stress is applied to the
Domino joints on the other side of the leg.

With this many Dominos and this much
glue surface it would take a lot more rack
pressure to fracture this joint than would
ever be applied to a table in normal use.

The same technique also allows the
construction of very strong doors.

Domino Machine In Action

Now let’s turn our attention to how the
Domino machine simplifies and improves
the construction of several different furni­ture projects.

Small Conventional Coffee Table

The legs are cabrio style cut from glued
up blocks of Maple. The Blood Wood
skirts are attached to the legs with one
Domino loose tenon which is more than
strong enough given the small size of this
particular table. The top is attached via
“L” shaped tongue pieces screwed to the
underside of the top with the tongue in-

serted into

Domino
mortises
cut into the
inner face
of the
skirts.

We start by
gluing up
blocks
which will

form the
legs. De­termine the
distance
you want
your cabrio
legs to
curve out
from the
inside of
the top of

This lovely small coffee table is con­structed from highly figured Oregon
Big Leaf Maple with Blood Wood
skirts. The quilting in the top is so
pronounced that you have to touch it
to convince yourself that the top is
really flat. As this photo shows, your
eye is convinced the top is three di­mensional with peaks and valleys.

The finish is a water based, environ­mentally benign pre-catalyzed con­version varnish that has been pol­ished to a mirror like piano finish.

the leg where in mates with the skirt to
the outer most portion of the curve.

Make the block that size square and a bit
longer than the leg will be high. Do not
use Dominos to join these pieces to form
your blocks as the leg curve is likely to go

right through wherever you put the Dom­ino tenon causing it to show once the
legs are cut out. Next, square up and
dimension the leg blocks. You can see
the template I used to draw the cabrio leg
outline on two adjoining faces of each
block lying on the Festool MFT just be­hind the leg block in the bottom picture.

Next, place the four blocks together so

the outline of the square top of the leg on
each block and draw an arrow pointing
diagnonally out to what will be the outside
of the cabrio curved leg.

Behind the stack of four leg blocks you
can see the glue up for the top. That was
done using Domino M&T as described in
the previous section under “edge-to­edge” joints.

Now set up the Domino machine to cut
the leg-to-apron mortises in each face of
each leg blank as shown. I wanted the

skirts to be inset from the legs by 15mm
and the skirts to be 20mm thick. So I set
the fence on the Domino machine to be
25mm up from the cutter centerline as

the corner where the top of the cabrio leg
outlines are common are all placed to the
center of the stack. Now roughly draw