Festool Domino Machine Instruction Manual - page 66

will expand and contract across the 

length of the table with normal sea-

sonal changes in humidity.  We need 

to accommodate that movement and 

also prevent the top sections from 

ever warping as they normally would 

try to do in sympathy with their annu-

lar growth rings.

Because our legs are going to move 

with the top, we also need a very 

strong skirt as a structural member.  

More on that in a moment when we 

talk about the construction of the 

legs.

To keep the skirts in place while still al-

lowing the top to move relative to the long 

grain of the skirts, sliding dovetails are 

used to secure the top to the skirts.

The first step is to cut the top plates to 

exact size making sure they are dead on 

square where the two plates will join in 

the middle.  Any error in the 90 degree 

angle between the sides of the top plates 

and the mating edges will really throw 

everything out of whack so be very pre-

cise with these cuts.  Cut the hinged leaf 

assembly to the exact same 

width as you cut each top 

plate making sure it is also 

very square edge to side. 

Now clamp the inverted top 

plates down on a known flat 

surface.  Keep the center 

edges of the top plates 

about 100mm apart.  Line 

up the edges.  As you can 

see in this photo, I used two 

Festool MFTs held side to 

side with table joining ele-

ments but left  a bit of a gap 

between the two tables.  We 

are going to cut a dovetail 

slot that starts in the middle 

of the table but stops short of 

the ends of the table so the space be-

tween the table plates allows the router to 

be plunged and moved across both top 

plates with the same setting to make sure 

the skirt dovetails exactly line up on each 

side.

I used a known straight level clamped to 

both tables as a fence to align the two top  

plates.  The top plates were positioned so 

the outboard ends would extend a bit 

over the edge of the MFT so I could 

Looking from the center to the top plates you can 

see the dovetail slot, the square used for guide 

rail alignment, and the clamp to hold the inboard 

part of the guide rail in place.