Festool Domino Machine Instruction Manual - page 20

glues.  If your application demands ex-

ceptional 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 thick-

ness.  (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 thick-

ness, put the first tenon centered the te-

non 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 thin-

nest of the two work pieces.  

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 pro-

duce 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 posi-

tioned 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 align-

ment pins hooked over one 

edge to align the two ends and/

or mount the two wings with the 

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 (some-

times called 

“Sealing Wax 

Wood” be-

cause of the 

rich, red natu-

ral color).

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