Learning Domino —   More on Domino Widths and Mortises

   Now Elena measures the distance between her first two mortises. I have often said you do not need to know metric measurements to work with this metric system, but this is one time when we appreciate having a straight edge that has both. The inset shows the metric measurement. Elena wants to divide the metric measurement by three to get the distance to set on the Cross Stop attachments. Of course she can have any number  of mortises. Using the metric is so much easier for this simple calculation.

   With the Cross Stop set to her number, she locates the Cross Stop pin in the first mortise and moves it to the right until it stops. Then she can make her plunge. She continues along the edge until the three are done.

   Here is her edge with "nicely" spaced mortises. I say "nicely" rather than equidistant because she made no effort to get the dividing math exactly on. Since she will always position from the one side, her mortises will line up exactly.

   The arrow points to the control for varying the width of the mortise. You can see the five different tenon sizes. The width can be exact fitting or loose. A good SOP is to have one mortise exact width and the rest loose.
   Question: Can we make a wider mortise for such uses like a ladder back chair where you want to not use the Domino tenons but the chair stave itself?

   There is the answer. The mortising action is so smooth you can easily manually step the Joiner across and make as wide a mortise as you want. The tenon that is in the mortise is a 5mm width Domino  tenon. So we will make a 5mm wide stave tenon.

   Andrea moves to the router table and uses the 5mm Domino tenon to set the width of the tenon maker — a new CMT bit. Its cutters and spacers can be set to match any number of widths from 3/8" to 3/4" — and in metric too, of course.

   She installed it in the table and adjusts the height so that the tenon will fit the mortise.

   She uses a Grr-ripper to make the cut safely.  

   She test fits the board in the mortise. It is a perfect fit width-wise. Now she can mark it and cut the shoulders.

   She marks where her shoulders should be.

   She uses a Japanese pull saw to cut-away the excess shoulders.

   And there is the completed tenon to fit the wide 5mm mortise.  The mortise was easy to make wider and the tenon was easy to cut to fit the mortise. You can't ask for better than that. It will come in very handy with many furniture applications.
   And if we can do it with the 5mm mortise bit, we can do the same with the 6, 8, and 10mm mortises. We will select the largest one that fits the design.

   Here is the finished wide tenon and mortise. It has the accuracy of the Domino Joiner system and the speed of both the Domino and the CMT Tenon Maker. What's not to like.

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