biscuit joiner? Yea or Nay?

[R. Deschain]

I have one and use it all the time for putting poplar (paint grade) and hardwood edges on shelves, and for plywood panel joining. I also have a horizontal drill press and a Festool domino joiner. I use the domino when I need strength in a joint and the horizontal press to drill dowel holes for cabinet face-frames (old school), though I use it less and less and the Festool more these days.

 

[jimreed2160]

I use mine a lot, but not for panal glue-ups. If your boards are prepped right, the joints won't need any extra strength and you'll still need to whack boards into alignment a little anyway. A nice fitting glue up will be plenty strong on it's own----the key words here are 'nice fitting'.

The places a biscuit joiner is useful are corner joints in plywood cases----that's my primary use. You can build a strong set of cabinet boxes with a biscuit joiner and proper glue-up and clamping. Almost all my shop cabinets/jigs, etc. are built this way.

Exactly. Biscuit joiners are great when used for boxes.