You are not sure whether a domino joiner or a biscuit joiner suits your needs best. In short, the Domino joiner beats the biscuit joiner in every matter. This is what I found out when searching if I whether get a domino joiner or a biscuit joiner.
A Domino gives you all of the strength of a dowel type join and also gives you the added bonus of being usable in much smaller joins unlike a biscuit. A Domino joiner is somewhat of a hybrid between two different types of joins; a biscuit join and a more tradition dowel joint. A Festool Domino joiner is extremely expensive and a high quality biscuit joiner can be up to 1/5 the rice of the introductory Festool model.
domino xl vs biscuit joiner Related Question:
Is a biscuit joiner the same as a domino?
While a biscuit joiner will AT MOST go 1/2″ into each side of the wood, a domino joiner will go almost 3″ into each side (remember, 1/2″ the tenon length goes into each piece). Which means a domino joiner will assist with both alignment AND structural rigidity of the joints.
Is a domino stronger than a biscuit?
The biscuit joiner cutter is shallower than the domino limiting the lateral strength compared to Festool Domino. Biscuits are made from beech wood and have a short grain which is not as strong as a timber with a straight grain which I make my Festool dominos from. The Festool Domino has a greater glue area.
Are biscuit joiners worth it?
Biscuits joints serve best as a quick and easy way to keep glue-up parts in alignment, and that they add appreciable pull-apart to strength joints that would be otherwise too weak to stand on their own – like butt joints and miter joints.
What are the disadvantages of a biscuit joint?
Biscuit joints do not stand up well against other joinery methods. We won’t spend any time comparing with mortise and tenon joints because all other joinery methods pale in comparison when measuring strength. But, as an example, the use of dowels as opposed to biscuits is a step up in strength.