Perpendicular Dominos?

[Prashun Patel]

I haven't found a good way to do these.

Referencing the edge to the Domino fence makes slots that are parallel to the edge. However, every now and then I require a slot that's perpendicular to the edge. An example of this is when attaching the lower front rail of a table that will contain drawers. In some designs, that lower rail is thin enough such that a vertical mortise (running parallel to the length of the leg) is not practical. Rather, I'd prefer to make a mortise in the lower rail parallel to the thickness of the rail, which would require a mortise perpendicular to the length of the leg. Depending on the depth of that drawer, referencing the Domino fence off the top of the leg might not be practical.

Clear as mud?!

I can address this by clamping an engineer's square in place on the leg, but this takes time and I figure there's a better, speedier solution out there...

Now, don't someone yell out, "dowels", because I sold my Dowelmax already!

[Sam Murdoch]

I don't know if there's an easy way. It's a jig situation. When doing perp. dominos I clamp up a reference board to which the bottom of the domino plate will register. This requires some serious trial and error to get the opposing domino slot in the proper orientation. I don't do this often enough to have the numbers at my instant mental retrieval. In the case of a leg as you describe I would set up the face of the leg to be flush between 2 boards or a slotted table to which I have screwed or clamped the above described reference board. Important to make certain that you have good support of the tool.
I know you know this - sorry to be stating the obvious.

Clear as mud? I tried .

[Chris Padilla]

To get around the trial and error and brain number retrieval, I use a guide much like you'd make for a regular circular saw to ride on only this one is for butting the Domino up against and then plunging through it to create a hole so you can line it up with your board. Pick a height to use as a reference and jot it down on your "Domino guide board" so you can go back to it each time.

[mreza Salav]

I understand your situation. Before answering that, even to do dominos parallel to an edge (e.g. when doing cabinet boxes and you have to do a domino into the face of a gable, parallel to an edge) instead of using the fence of the domino to space from the edge I found it is easier to control the domino if the full face of the domino (with the fence rolled up) is on the surface, instead I made a small square out of 3/8" MDF that gets screwed to the base of domino (right where other festool jigs gets attached) and that MDF piece has about 1/4" or so lip that extends beyond the face. Then you can reference (using that) from the base instead of the fence.
You can make a similar jig that gets attached to the base of Domino (using the same knob screws) that has a T shape, and use it in your situation to make dominos that are perpendicular to the leg (I hope it is clear). Basically imagin you have a T screwed to the base of your domino.

[Prashun Patel]

Thank you all. Mreza, I am going to try your solution. I don't even mind making a project specific jig; as long as I can use it to reference both sides of the joint with one setting.

In fact, for my particular application, I only need it for the lower rail. The upper rail is thin enough that a parallel slot at the top of the leg will be pretty weak anyway; there will be a sliver of short grain above the slot in the leg that will probably break if I just look at it wrong. Instead, I'm going to dovetail the top rail and domino the lower rail. Thanks!

[mreza Salav]

To reference from both sides you can just flip the T and screw it the other way, it will be the exact same size as the screw holes in the base of Domino are centric.
I usually make my holes a little wider if I have a row of dominos, that makes alignment (horizontally) easier and requires less precesion.

[johnny means]

I like the green kool-aid as much as the next guy, but sometimes the best Domino is a dowel.