Events Calendar
Knock down connectors aren’t really a big part of the landscape of woodworking today. IKEA doesn’t really project the image of high quality woodworking but one thing they did very well was about corner the market in these type of connectors in their goal to sell products customers could buy and transport using a small car and with even most basic of skills customers could assemble those products in their home using the most basic of tools. Not every project we build would need this portability but let’s say you want to build a custom quality shelf for your family member who is starting life in a dorm two states away, or maybe you want to build a larger project that won’t easily fit through the doorway or up a stair case, or maybe like in my case recently – you want to build a large bar in a kitchen that has a support post that actually goes right through middle. In my case I had to build the cabinet in my shop completely – including finish – and then disassemble and reassemble at the work site around the post. Wouldn’t that be nice if you could install connectors that will guarantee the project will be reassembled quickly and exactly like it was built in your shop and be of a quality high enough to withstand the test of time?
In the past this wasn’t an easy proposition as most of these connectors pretty much required CNC level accuracy or were just too time consuming to be practical. Festool has created a system using their Domino to easily and quickly add these connectors to your projects using much higher quality connectors. The costs is of course of purchasing a Domino for this plus higher connections costs for the hardware itself doesn’t lend it to every woodworker or every project. So if you find you may want this sort of capability but don’t have a Domino – there are several in our club who do. Don’t need a box of 50 connector sets for $110 for your project – well I have the both the large and small connector kits and can just charge the cost for the hardware you need for just your project. One only has to remember is not every connection within a project needs to be reversible – only the ones that will actually need to be disassembled will need the hardware so costs are very reasonable considering the convenience. One nice thing about a club such as ours is we can share resources and capabilities for those special projects that might benefit with portability. So if you think you would ever find you may need this kind of capability on your projects in the future or are just curious as to how this works, I will discuss the limitations, the costs, and process used for both the large and small connectors. I’ll also demonstrate this using both the DF500 Domino (small connectors) and the DF700 Domino (large connectors) so you’ll get a better idea of how these might benefit your projects.