Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Wow! Domino in action!
Today I cut the mortises for the gussets -- both leg side and top side. I learned a bunch about Domino.
First, cutting mortises after marking them, even on an irregular piece like the gusset for this bench, is a breeze - truly fast and easy. Much like you would cut a biscuit, but with the see through top and hairline centering marks, totally a breeze.
For the gusset, I used different depths for a 8 X 40 tenon -- 15 mm in the top and leg side and 25 in the end grain on the gusset. Incredibly precise , really fast - even though I am way up on the learning curve.
Doing the mortises on the legs started off a little tricky. I thought I would need to test some pieces to make sure the center-line of the joiner matched the center-line of the mortises. Fortunately, while I was setting up for the test, I saw this little mark on the right side of Domino’s base. Hmm, I thought - could that be a centerline mark? Looks pretty close and after I tested it - I found out it was. Setting up for a cut in the middle of a slab is now, mostly, a layout issue. The simple straight edge that I used was quite sufficient for the task. The mortises all lined up perfectly.
Even being so far up on the learning curve, it took a small fraction of the time to do a conventional mortise.
Layout, because Domino is so precise, must be done carefully and using a sharp pencil. Once the layout is done, the actual cutting of the mortises is almost anti-climactic.
This is truly one of those tools that changes the way you work and think about projects!
First, cutting mortises after marking them, even on an irregular piece like the gusset for this bench, is a breeze - truly fast and easy. Much like you would cut a biscuit, but with the see through top and hairline centering marks, totally a breeze.
For the gusset, I used different depths for a 8 X 40 tenon -- 15 mm in the top and leg side and 25 in the end grain on the gusset. Incredibly precise , really fast - even though I am way up on the learning curve.
Doing the mortises on the legs started off a little tricky. I thought I would need to test some pieces to make sure the center-line of the joiner matched the center-line of the mortises. Fortunately, while I was setting up for the test, I saw this little mark on the right side of Domino’s base. Hmm, I thought - could that be a centerline mark? Looks pretty close and after I tested it - I found out it was. Setting up for a cut in the middle of a slab is now, mostly, a layout issue. The simple straight edge that I used was quite sufficient for the task. The mortises all lined up perfectly.
Even being so far up on the learning curve, it took a small fraction of the time to do a conventional mortise.
Layout, because Domino is so precise, must be done carefully and using a sharp pencil. Once the layout is done, the actual cutting of the mortises is almost anti-climactic.
This is truly one of those tools that changes the way you work and think about projects!
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