I don’t get the hate for the Domino. It is an extremely useful tool to save time, but it is a purely luxury thing and there is nothing that you can’t do without it. After all, in the end a Domino is just a fancy dowel and you can build anything that is shown in those youtube videos with a cheap dowel-jig. I built complete tables with this jig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osC9T3WVnlM which cost me 20€ in a set with dowels, drillbits and woodglue. Yes, it took me 2 hours to do the dowelling which would have been 15 minutes with the Domino, but I am only building a table once every 10 years and not weekly like those Youtubers do.
My main gripe is that you can’t roll one out without excusing yourself from using it. So you hear “Yes today I am using a Domino, but you don’t have to. I get lots of comments saying “Well that’s great if you have $90,000 worth of tools” You could do this with biscuits or dowels, or make the mortises with a normal router, you don’t need this thing, but since I do have one…” And I’m kinda tired of skipping through it.
But it speaks more to OP’s overall gripe, where woodtubers will start a video with the thesis statement “I made this in an afternoon out of just one 2x10!” Actual materials list: 1 2x10, two board feet of white oak and half a board foot of walnut “I had lying around,” four hanger bolts, four lag bolts, two pairs of self-closing drawer slides, four locking casters, and nine nails. Add on to this several large pieces of plywood, pine and toggle clamps for making specialized jigs. Several steps use a jointer, planer, drill press and other large, expensive tools hobbyists likely don’t have. The joinery process takes no time at all because of the use of a $1500 joiner.
“And that’s how I turned a single 2x10 into a luxury camping trailer that sleeps six, all before dinner time!”
They sell it as a cheap and fast project, except during the course of the video the budget balloons into the tens of thousands when you include the tools. Sure you could get it done with a simpler set of more basic, multifunctional tools…it’ll just take forty times longer.
I think it’s a pretty natural tool to “grime” on, here’s why:
The Domino is uniquely able to make a project easy and fast, but is pretty much inaccessible to beginners. A job that can be done in a few minutes with a Domino takes a few hours making mortises by other means, or using dowels, and all those other means take more skill to use than a Domino, which is as easy to use as a biscuit joiner. And there’s no home gamer version.
When I see a Woodtuber pull out a track saw, I can translate that to “my circular saw and my straight edge clamp. Got it.” When they pull out a spindle sander, I say “sanding drum in my drill press. Got it.” When they pull out a Domino, I go “…decide which of a few other joinery systems are available to me, possibly redesign this part of the project to fit these new limitations, spend a lot more time laying it out and setting it up, then carefully make a plunge cut with a router or use a dowel jig. Got it.”
Some woodtubers don’t ask themselves “is this a beginner project with common general purpose tools, or is it only quick and easy because I have expensive specialized tools?”
I don’t get the hate for the Domino. It is an extremely useful tool to save time, but it is a purely luxury thing and there is nothing that you can’t do without it. After all, in the end a Domino is just a fancy dowel and you can build anything that is shown in those youtube videos with a cheap dowel-jig. I built complete tables with this jig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osC9T3WVnlM which cost me 20€ in a set with dowels, drillbits and woodglue. Yes, it took me 2 hours to do the dowelling which would have been 15 minutes with the Domino, but I am only building a table once every 10 years and not weekly like those Youtubers do.
My main gripe is that you can’t roll one out without excusing yourself from using it. So you hear “Yes today I am using a Domino, but you don’t have to. I get lots of comments saying “Well that’s great if you have $90,000 worth of tools” You could do this with biscuits or dowels, or make the mortises with a normal router, you don’t need this thing, but since I do have one…” And I’m kinda tired of skipping through it.
But it speaks more to OP’s overall gripe, where woodtubers will start a video with the thesis statement “I made this in an afternoon out of just one 2x10!” Actual materials list: 1 2x10, two board feet of white oak and half a board foot of walnut “I had lying around,” four hanger bolts, four lag bolts, two pairs of self-closing drawer slides, four locking casters, and nine nails. Add on to this several large pieces of plywood, pine and toggle clamps for making specialized jigs. Several steps use a jointer, planer, drill press and other large, expensive tools hobbyists likely don’t have. The joinery process takes no time at all because of the use of a $1500 joiner.
“And that’s how I turned a single 2x10 into a luxury camping trailer that sleeps six, all before dinner time!”
They sell it as a cheap and fast project, except during the course of the video the budget balloons into the tens of thousands when you include the tools. Sure you could get it done with a simpler set of more basic, multifunctional tools…it’ll just take forty times longer.
The thing with the cutoffs from previous projects etc I totally get, but the Domino is such a weird Tool to grime on
I think it’s a pretty natural tool to “grime” on, here’s why:
The Domino is uniquely able to make a project easy and fast, but is pretty much inaccessible to beginners. A job that can be done in a few minutes with a Domino takes a few hours making mortises by other means, or using dowels, and all those other means take more skill to use than a Domino, which is as easy to use as a biscuit joiner. And there’s no home gamer version.
When I see a Woodtuber pull out a track saw, I can translate that to “my circular saw and my straight edge clamp. Got it.” When they pull out a spindle sander, I say “sanding drum in my drill press. Got it.” When they pull out a Domino, I go “…decide which of a few other joinery systems are available to me, possibly redesign this part of the project to fit these new limitations, spend a lot more time laying it out and setting it up, then carefully make a plunge cut with a router or use a dowel jig. Got it.”
Some woodtubers don’t ask themselves “is this a beginner project with common general purpose tools, or is it only quick and easy because I have expensive specialized tools?”