This is something that occurred to me, in a moment of either buyer’s regret or brilliant insight, shortly after I bought a Festool Domino. I’m not advocating for anything, not trying to sell something or attempting to talk anyone into anything. I know how things can get on this forum when the discussion turns to Festool. But I’ll venture on.
In looking at the cutting bits the Dominos came with, I realized one could chuck the shank up in a standard Jacobs-style chuck. The outer diameter on the non-cutting end is around 3/8 inch.
The bits are undoubtedly made just for the purpose of drilling into and then swivelling from side to side in order to cut the precise mortise. They’re not really designed to be used for slot mortising. Still, I thought I’d give it a go.
I have a Grizzly horizontal boring machine that, until I bought the Domino, I used for mortising. It took the Festool bit readily, and after I did a bit of adjusting, I cut a slot into the edge of a piece of cherry. The results are what you see below.
The mortise the Domino is sticking out of is the one I cut with the Grizzly. The other two are ones I made with the Domino itself. In terms of finish inside the mortise there is no difference that I could detect. The fit was such that I had to use a pair of pliers in order to remove the tenon – as I have had to do with Domino-cut mortises…
So, what does this mean?
Does it mean that someone could purchase the $450 Grizzly machine and use the Domino bits and loose tenons – and have money left over, and a horizontal boring machine as well?
There is no way to compare the two tools. The Festool is a highly engineered, well thought-out piece of machinery. Expensive too. The Grizzly, by comparison, is crudely made. But it can be set up to do some good work – though it was not designed to do mortising.
Again, the Domino bits are probably not designed to withstand the side loads slot mortising imposes on them. They might snap in this configuration. But perhaps one could buy end mills that would cut the same width holes as the Dominos do.
Just throwing this stuff out there for comment.. Zolton
If you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It’s not a pet. – Jackie Moon
Replies
You could buy metric endmills and do the same thing for less than buying the Domino tooling. The Domino tenons are certainly cheap enough but with the Grizzly you can do larger (thicker) mortises and make your own tenons. The Grizzly is a perfectly usable machine for slot mortising and doweling.
Rick,
I had a hard time setting up the Grizzly horizontal boring machine so it will bore holes (or make mortises) parallel to the the movable table.
If the bit doesn't enter the wood exactly parallel, the mortises wind up larger at the top than they are at the bottom. Fitting an even-sized tenon into a hole like that makes for a sloppy fit on top and too tight at the bottom. On some projects I had to plane the tenons in a slight taper in order to get them to fit even reasonably well..
I did fiddle with the table adjustments to try to achieve some correction for this problem, but it seems as though cranking down on the holding clamp on the tabletop skews the parallelism. I felt like I was chasing my tail trying to run these discrepancies down.
Plus, the back-and-forth movement on the table on my machine is very herky-jerky. It would be great if it had linear bearings. But the simple sleeves seem to bind on the shafts they slide on, no matter what type of lube I use or what adjustments I make.
Zolton If you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
I've talked to others with the Grizzly G0540 used a as a slot mortiser. Didn't hear any negative comments. There's a review at Woodcentral.
Linear bearings would be overkill in my opinion of 25 years of machine repair. The only one with linear bearings is the Multi-router and I don't have a lot of respect for it only because they went backwards and use it for tenons and everything else. All the commercial ones have cast iron dovetailed ways. The Rojek is pretty much the same construction as the Grizzly as are the add on mortisers for the combo machines which can be set up as seperate machines. Vega and a few others have made similar units that used routers but they never caught on. I've seen pretty much all the slot mortisers out there over 35 years as I think they are the most unknown and misunderstood tools out there along with the stroke sander of course.
I'd be interested in hearing how it is that some threads fall off the front page so quickly while others seem to linger for days or weeks. Does it have to do with activity in the threads? Number of unique viewers? Payola?
Zolton
If you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
It's alphabetical by the username of the original poster. You're in deep doo-doo. ;-)
Actually, in this case it's just because there were a lot of new posts in a large number of threads in this section.
-Steve
As I read your post I just laughed I have the same setup as you. I used the HZ boring machine till I purchased the domino when it first came out. I never thought of using the bits in the HZ machine but its a great idea. I used Whiteside upspiral bits which I had but was later told the endmils were the trick. As to doing one or the other, I love the speed and ease of the domino! No comparison to the HZ from griz and it is collecting dust. Now I'm sure there may come a time when I would still need the hz machine so I don't plan on getting rid of it. On my current project i'm on my second bag of domino's Great tool. What can I say I'm lazy, but the grizz hz is a very cost effective floating tenon machine in my opinion.
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Bones,
Did you, or are you, having problems getting the Grizzly to make accurate mortises? I know you don't use it much now. But back when you had it going, was that a problem?
I can't seem to get the table aligned with the bit so it goes in precisely parallel. It's off a touch, and thus cuts a mortise that's wider at the top than at the bottom. When you have to plane each loose tenon to a slight taper in order for it to fit the mortise, it evaporates all the time savings you'd like to yield out of using a slot mortiser in the first place. Not to mention the fun...
Plus, the sliding mechanism on my machine binds in such a way that it makes the movements jerky. It's hard to cut a good mortise that way. Hard to have fun either.
Let's face it. The Domino is a lot more fun than the Grizzly...
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
I build an aux table and leveled with playing cards (a trick a friend of mine taught me who levels pool tables) and then clamped that table down to the base. It only took one card in one location to do the trick. My slide mechanism has no issues and the stop took a minute to lock in due to the pain in the arse location but the left side was locked a zero so I only set one. Thats why I love the domino its fast. Draw a strait line across the pieces. I cut one side tight and one size larger on the mating side to allow for lateral alignment and bingo bango done! But I had no problem with the griz. I could have played the the alignment mecanizims with the table but the method I used was easier form especially since its a dedicated use machine. I still stand by "most cost efective" but not in the same league of the domino!. Take care. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
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