The Domino is a loose mortise and tenon joining tool manufactured by the German company Festool.

History and description

First introduced in 2005, it came to the US market in 2007. The core idea for this type of a tool came from German master cabinetmaker Vitus Rommel. It envisioned a tool that can cut a mortise in single operation - putting it on par with a biscuit joiner on speed while allowing for a more flexible and potentially stronger floating-tenon joint. The tool implementation by Festool involves a router-like spinning shaft with a special shape cutter bit. The shaft also moves sideways, allowing to cut full round-ended mortises in a single operation. Each plunge creates a mortise that is sized to accept a standard 'DOMINO' loose tenon with an oval-shaped cross section. The original tool supported cutter sizes from 4 mm to 10 mm with available tenon sizes from 4x20 mm up to 10x50 mm. This allowed joints in stock as thin as 10 mm. Later a bigger tool was introduced allowing tenon sizes up to 14x140 mm, opening many carpentry use cases for the tool family. The tool series was envisioned from the beginning for high workflow efficiency, namely: The compactness of a hand-operated tool, coupled with the focus on workflow efficiency is what allows the DOMINO mortising tools to service most use cases typically served by the simpler biscuit and dowel joint tools, expanding loose-tenon use cases significantly. In smaller businesses or with the DIY users, where industrial machinery is not available, a cabinetmaker may employ a DOMINO loose-tenon joint where other, less complicated but more laborious, joints would have to be employed otherwise.

Advantages

Disadvantages