
Add additional Domino mortises along the
edges of each board using either of two
methods. First you can use the excellent
two part fence extender (called a “side
stop” in Festool literature) we saw earlier.
Set the pin spacing to match the desired
mortise to mortise spacing. By hooking
the alignment pin in the edge of the mor-
tise you just cut, the next mortise will be
spaced over by that amount. Progress
across both board with the same settings
and the mortises will all align perfectly.
You also can align by just marking the
desired locations with a pencil line across
both boards. Leave the slot width set to
narrow and cut mortises with the bit cen-
ter mark aligned with each of your pencil
lines on one of the two boards to be
joined. Reset the slot width to the wider
slot setting and cut the remaining mortise
slots in the second board (shown in the
photo at the top of the previous page).
Since the first mortise slot in each board
is the same width as the Domino tenon,
that one M&T joint will align the two
boards end to end. The slightly wider
mortise slots you cut for the remaining
mortises in the second board will offset
any minor misalignment that might be
present, allowing the two edges of the
boards to come tightly together with the
faces perfectly aligned.
The Domino mortise slot to Domino tenon
fit is much tighter than is the case with a
biscuit jointer so the face to face align-
ment is much better. The Domino tenons
are also a lot stronger, set deeper and
provide more glue surface area than a
biscuit so a Domino reinforced edge-to-
edge joint is superior in every way to an
equivalent biscuit edge-to-edge joint in
my experience.
While you can cut these Domino mortise
slots at any height down the edge from
the face of the boards, conventional “wis-
dom” would have you place them in the
middle of the two work pieces to be
joined. Usually the recommendation is
to use a tenon one third the thickness of
the work pieces to be joined thereby leav-
ing an edge to slot width the same as the
tenon width.
In working with Dominos I find I prefer to
use a Domino that is half, rather than one
third, the thickness of the work pieces to
be joined. The Domino tenons do not
swell up the way biscuits can and the
grain runs the length of the Domino te-
non. Since the Domino penetrates into
the edge of the work piece a relatively
long way (anywhere from 15 to 25mm
depending on the tenon length you use,)
the bending moment is spread over
enough distance that even on a stressed
joint the relatively thinner wall provides
plenty of support.
Now let’s look at the case of a common
end-to-edge joint, such as you find in rail
and stile work.
Because it is so easy to calculate dimen-
sions in my head this way, I commonly
use rail and stile components that are
50mm wide by 20mm thick and panel
slots are 10mm wide by 10mm deep and
centered on the 20mm thick work piece
edges or ends.
A Domino mortise and tenon centered on
the 20mm thickness of my work pieces
matches these standards perfectly. And,
I can reinforce the glued up 10mm thick
panels by using a 5mm centered Domino
mortise and tenon.