Festool Domino Machine Instruction Manual - page 27

machining Domino mortises on the 

inside of the skirts as shown in this 

photos.

Invert the now finished top on a soft, 

flat surface.  I use a rubber sanding 

pad but an old blanket will work as 

well.  You do not want to scratch the 

top you worked so hard to polish.  

Don’t worry though, if you do 

scratch it, you can remove the 

scratch by repolishing.

The easiest way to cut the Domino 

mortises into the inside of the skirts 

is to cut them while the skirt and leg 

assembly is clamped to the flat ref-

erence surface.  Remember that the 

distance from the base of the Dom-

ino fence to the centerline of the cutter is 

10mm.  If you use a 6mm cutter with the 

base on the reference surface a 6mm slot 

will be centered up 10mm leaving a 7mm 

distance from the bottom of the slot to the 

reference surface which is on the same 

plane that the bottom of the top will be on 

when you mate the two components to-

gether.

It is easy to make a tongue 

block with the base of the 

tongue up slightly less than 

7mm from stock that is 

12mm thick.  That will pre-

sent a 5mm tongue to insert 

into the 6mm slot cut on the 

inside of the skirts.  By keep-

ing the bottom of the tongue 

a bit less than 7mm, when 

you screw that block to the 

underside of the table top the 

tongue will press the skirt 

firmly to the top while still al-

lowing it to move with normal 

seasonal changes in humid-

ity.

You can also cut these mortises from the 

top side if you want more bottom of slot to 

underside of top dimension.  Set the 

Domino fence height to wherever you 

want the center of the slot.  Add on the 

auxiliary base for stability.  Place the 

fence on the top edge of the skirt with the 

auxiliary fence held to the inside face of 

the skirt and make the cuts.  Machine 

tongue blocks to match, screw them