Festool Domino Machine Instruction Manual - page 21
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 remember-
ing 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 po-
sition 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.
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 build-
along 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.
To avoid this problem while
still keeping the edge of
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 to-
gether while still allowing one to slide
enough relative to the other....a very
handy trick to keep in mind.
One final note on joining two pieces of
wood. Where even more strength is
needed than you think would be supplied
You may need even more pocket
hole clearance for some woods.