The Festool Domino XL Jointing Genius


Independent Review by Peter Brett


Most of my work is with wood, so finding good ways to join pieces of wood accurately, strongly and sometimes elegantly, is a bit of a Holy Grail in my finished projects. The old traditional joints like dovetails and mortise


and tenon joints have been well and truly tested by time and when they are well done they are very good. The trouble is they are very time-consuming to make. They need a lot of skill and good tools to pull off properly and while clients like them, in all honesty, they are not really prepared to pay for them. Of course there have been powered mechanical


solutions around for years. I sometimes use a router dovetail jig for making drawer sides and I am lucky enough to have access to a mortiser, so I can save a lot of time when I need to. But, these solutions have their difficulties. The dovetail jig is fiddly to set up and I have to bring the timber to the mortiser, not the other way round. The genius of the Domino XL is that it is a


handheld machine, powered by ordinary 230V current, that will make strong and accurate mortise joints with loose tenons in wood. And it does it remarkably quickly too. It is hard to characterize the Domino jointer in the


sense that it is kind of set up and operates a bit like a biscuit jointer or a doweller, but its main function is to make mortise joints that use strong hardwood dominoes or tenons to make the joint between the components. Opening up the usual Festool Systainer box there


is surprisingly few components in it:- the Domino Jointer, a spanner, some domino dowels, the cutter, the power cord, the support base, the instruction booklet and guarantee cards. But that is all you need. It is likely that most of the purchasers of this


machine will have a clear idea of what it will do and what jobs they need to do with it. But for those that are thinking about getting one and want to know what it will do, the instruction book and the product information is a bit modest. Maybe the best bet is to


22 ToolBUSINESS+HIRE


get onto the internet and look at some of the reviews and video demos that are available. These are show both professional and amateur use of the Domino XL in a wide variety of applications and also demonstrate just how easy it is to set up and use. This is largely due to the fact that the Festool designers have done the thinking for us, all we have to do is familiarize ourselves with the machine and set it up accurately for the jobs we want to do. Click on this link to view the demo :


http://www.festool.net/dominoXL/gb/index.html Basically the machine is in two parts: the fence


assembly and the motor housing with other controls. The front fences are very similar in set up to a


biscuit jointer with two scales:- a depth scale and an angle scale. These are set by loosening two Bristol levers, one on each side of the fence assembly, finding the correct setting and retightening the levers. The angle scale has detents at 0, 22.5 45, 67 and 90 degrees and is accurate enough to be set to individual degrees. The depth scale is adjustable for custom settings,


but a block on the left side of the assembly will set depths from 15mm to 40mm in 5mm steps. As you would expect in a Festool, the machining


of the fence faces is immaculate and the whole assembly is practical and rugged The motor housing needs to be removed in order


to fit the cutter easily. By flicking the locknut up with the supplied spanner, the fence slides neatly off the guide rails. Directly under the main handle the cutter is screwed on to the waiting spindle while the spindle lock is engaged via the spring-loaded button on the base of the motor. There are only three other main controls. The


on/off switch is great to use because it operates positively and smoothly, but is slightly recessed to help prevent accidental starting. On the left hand side near the flat motor base is a


click-stop that sets the depth of cut for the cutter. This is set at 5mm intervals from 15mm to 70mm depth.


Dowel hole width is set by a green lever above


the depth scale, with a visible indicator for the operator on the top of the motor housing. The Domino cutter not only drills as it is plunged forward into the work, but it also oscillates from side to side to create an elongated mortise that is rounded at each end. The user can choose to have the domino dowel sitting snug into the hole created, or it can be set to have about 3mm of play so that final assembly and gluing of components would be a little easier. With the confidence of knowing that the Domino


XL is a Festool, and with some experience of other excellent Festool machines I have used, I set about making a series of joints in some 3 by 2 softwood, as if I was making a window frame. The dowels were in pairs in long and end grain and it is easy to space the pairs of dowels by using the spacer pins in the front guide fence. Within a very short time I felt very confident using


the Domino since it is easy to line up using the guide marks on the clear plastic panel on the depth fence. The noise level is very controlled, and with the brand new sharp cutter fitted, the mortise holes were crisp and accurate. At first I set the joints with a bit of extra play, but especially on long grain and with a bit of experience, I was able to get perfectly matching joints in each piece of timber I was jointing. With a vacuum extraction fitted to the extraction


port, there was very little mess or dust to clean up. A definite plus in the Health and Safety department. I can now see why users have become converted


to the Festool Domino tools – they just do the job they were designed to do so well that you wonder how you did without one. Yes, a Domino XL will set you back nearly £1000, but for the tradesperson using it in the right applications it will save so much time and effort that it would probably pay for itself in no time. I heartily recommend it if you need to make lots of strong and accurate joints in wood.


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