Festool Domino Machine Instruction Manual - page 26

Sand all the legs to final shape and di-

mension and cut the profile for the skirts.  

I like to break the edges on things like 

skirts with a 45 degree chamfer router bit 

so the hand feels a smooth, rather than a 

sharp edge.

Once the skirts are finished, use the ad-

justable square set as before to mark the 

centerline of the mortise to be cut in each 

skirt.  Mark each from what will be the top  

of the skirt so you are always using the 

same reference and to make sure the top  

of the skirt and the top of the leg line up.

Reset the Domino fence height to be half 

the skirt height, keep the width set to 

minimum and the depth to the same set-

ting you used for the legs.  Place the 

fence on the outside face of each skirt 

piece, slide the Domino until the center 

mark lines up with your mark, and make 

the cut.  

If you are nervous about your ability to 

cut all the skirt mortises to the same cen-

terline you used for the leg mortises, then 

reset the slot width to the middle setting 

before you make the skirt mortise cuts.  

The resulting skirt mortise will be wider 

than the leg mortise providing some ad-

justment room at assembly time.  

That said, I think you will find the visual 

reference accuracy built into the Domino 

machine to be plenty good enough for 

you to cut all the mortises on the mini-

mum width setting allowing the tenon to 

do the leg top to skirt top alignment for 

you.  However, if you prefer to cut a wider 

mortise slot and do your own alignment, 

there will be very little difference in the 

leg-to-skirt joint strength as most of the 

strength of a M&T joint is derived from 

the glue on the faces of the tenon, not on 

the edges of the tenon.

Next, shape and sand the top.  I like to go 

up to 800 grit before the first seal coat 

when I want such a high gloss glass-like 

finish such as on the top of this piece.  

Seal it on all surfaces, sand again to 800 

grit and do the build coats.  Sand the final 

build coat to 800 and do one light top 

coat.  Set the top aside to cure for a cou-

ple of days before polishing.  

A bit of a confession here - I have done 

the polishing long enough to be comfort-

able polishing a piece after just a few 

hours of curing, but I don’t recommend 

that to you until you gain a lot of experi-

ence as it is easy to burn the finish when 

it is so young.  Once it fully cross-links, it 

will polish without burning.

For more detail on water based finishes, 

buffing and polishing take a look at the 

manual available on the 

targetcoatings.com home page.

While the top is being finished, assemble 

the legs to the skirts with glue, legs 

pointed up.  Clamp the skirts down to the 

top of a flat surface like the MFT to regis-

ter the top of the skirt and the top of the 

legs to the same plane and square that 

assembly while the glue dries.

Finish the leg and skirt assembly and you 

are ready to mate the top to the legs by