Turn Your Biscuit Joiner Into a Domino Joiner

welcome back everybody in today's video I'm going to show you how to use your biscuit joiner as a domino jointer now biscuit joiners are considered loose tenon joinery machines they are used for a number of different applications some people will swear that you can use these to build cabinets and do some traditional joinery all of which if you own one you will find out is not true as I have mentioned before biscuits are pretty brittle and flimsy even if they're filled up with glue and they absorb the glue they break very easily and they're not really useful as loose Tenon's if you're like me you bought a biscuit joiner thinking that your life might get a little easier I bought this Trident biscuit joiner about eight years ago at the time I think it cost me around $300 a lot of different companies make biscuit joiners porter-cable makes a good one for a reasonable price reowww B makes one as well and they are retailing for just over $100 in most cases so you can get them a lot more reasonably priced nowadays often they are sold as plate joiners is the term they use biscuit joiner comes with an adjustable fence which we will not use in this case the machine itself is pretty straightforward it has a round slot cutting blade on the inside and is only exposed when you're actually making the cut it has an adjustable fence for angle cuts for setting depth you can do so with the depth dial all the way from 0 1020 being the presets for that type of biscuit all the way up to maximum which is m4 today we're going to use em because we are not going to use biscuits no if you don't own a biscuit joiner you could go into the description below and see how use a slot cutter on the router table also known as a rabbit bit to do the same type of joinery that I'm going to do in this video for this demonstration I'm going to use 3/4 inch pine that is 2 and 5/8 inches wide so we're going to make a face frame 3/4 inch material is pretty common for most projects make your first cut I'm just gonna put some sandpaper down to increase my height a little bit line up my cut again flip it over line up the cut again [Music] [Applause] and now I have a clean and centered 1/4 inch kerf which will accommodate a 1/4 inch Domino or loose tenon in my case all I'm using here is a stack of sandpaper three sheets of 120 grit I could use the adjustable fence guide that comes with the biscuit joiner but the one that comes with the Triton is not very good I find it quicker and simpler to use something flat like a stack of sandpaper or some thin door skin this is probably too thick but you get the idea something to lay down and make your second and third cut then you get the perfect rabbit and it's ready for joinery next we're going to cut the end green piece for those of you who do not like to cut in green on the router table this is probably a better method for you once again you're going to line up your cut just a little over an eighth of an inch from the top edge this is just over two and five-eighths that's about as narrow a piece as you can cut with this method once again we will lay down our sandpaper and you see there's no safety issues with this I can flip this over now and do the other side to put the sandpaper down again do my final cut there you have it we have our 1/4 inch rabbit so the maximum depth on this cut was 7/16 so I've got 7/16 on either side to work with I can make a loose tenon that is roughly around 7/8 and about an inch and a quarter in width I have a piece of scrap poplar that I'll use for the loose tenon I'm going to cut the width of the tenon now to just under a quarter inch if you don't have a gripper a really great thing to have for this type of work otherwise I would do it on the bandsaw don't try that without a gripper so now comes the moment of truth I have my loose tenon I'm going to insert it on the side piece then I'm going to put it in here just a small amount of pressure I hardly have to put any pressure on it and that's it the perfect joint using your biscuit joiner as a floating tenant machine without even breaking a sweat you might ask Eric what if I want to join thicker pieces of wood I'm going to use these two pieces of 2x4 to demonstrate a thicker joint this is just some door skin I'm going to use this time once again same principle I'm going to line up my end flip it over you can use different thicknesses of plywood right here you'll notice a mark on the side of your biscuit joiner this indicates the center mark of where the blade is going to cut you can check the side to line up your cut with your workpiece so when you're looking at this you can see exactly where the blade is going to enter the wood now I've got a nice wide kerf so on my 1 and 1/2 inch piece of wood I now have a mortise that is half an inch [Music] there we go same joint with 2x4 this hasn't even been glued yet it's a nice solid joint a little bit of sandpaper or a little bit of scrap plywood and you can get the perfect loose tenon joint using the biscuit joiner you already own if you do not own a biscuit joiner don't despair I have plenty of other ways that you can do this check out the links in the description below it is one of the safest joinery methods because the blade is never exposed you never see it you've got mortises that will line up perfectly on adjoining pieces which is exactly what you want as always I welcome your questions and comments in the comment section below if you want to buy me a beer head on over to my patreon page over here please remember to Like share and subscribe if you haven't done so already there's a couple more videos on this side for you to watch until next time thanks for watching and have a great day

Channel: Eric Sorensen

Views: 249,693

Rating: 3.6221566 out of 5

Keywords: domino joiner, jointer, joinery, loose tenon joinery, mortise and tenon, floating tenon, joiner machines, biscuit joiner, plate joiner, joinery tips, joinery tricks, woodworking, woodcraft, joinery techniques, easy joinery, door building, DIY doors, seamless joints, furniture making, maker, Rabbeting, woodshop, rabbets

Id: k1_UQ9P0wt4

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/duHuCSGO]

I'm sorry but this isn't a great option if you want to do a lot of joints. To much actions needed for what is normaly just one or 2.