Heck, at that price it makes buying a biscuit cutter/joiner attractive again.

Starting out, it seemed to me customary to use the largests possible contact and cross sectional strength for your joints so you don’t rely on the glue. Biscuits for face frames (before the Kreg), dowels for thicker boards, lap joints for wide boards, and mortise and tenon for thick and wide boards.

My only complaint with this jig is that drill bit collar. It never stays in place. I just use tape.

Elmegil-
2) Pocket screw joints with todays glue is just as strong as any other comparable joint. The only downside is that you have a nasty looking hole one one side of the piece. But with good planning and layout of your project this is a really a mute issue. The reason why a lot of guys like this joint for face frames is because after you attach it to the cabinet you never see the pocket holes. Also you can build more frames quicker and the need to have a ton of clamps around is not nessesary as the screw will hold the joint till the glue dries!

3) many people dislike biscuits because contrary to what they told us back in woodworking classes back in the old days. Biscuits just don’t have the long grains surpahce area needed for glueing up a strong joint. Plus with technology like Kregs sets and Festool dominoe and all the others bisquits are really not needed. About the only thing worth keeping them around for is to use them to align boards flush with when you are jointing them.

1) why couldn’t you build an equivalent jig yourself with some good hardwood and a drill press?

2) Why only pocket screws for face frames? I’m curious because I’ve always disliked pocket screw joints, but I’d like to know if there’s something I ought to do that way.

3) Why all the hate for biscuits? Seriously, I’ve used them a lot and have yet to find an application where they weren’t strong enough. 8 foot doors, ok, I can see that, but for general work, unless as you say they might bump through, they seem to work well for me. I have a 9 foot oak radiator cover put together primarily with biscuits and my kids have been jumping on it for several years now…. I also recall one of the woodworking magazines doing a stress test that found biscuits are marginally weaker, but the real thing that makes or breaks the joint is the glue job and the joint fit.

I’ve got this one, and I mostly like it, but the setup is kind of a pain in the tookas, especially for corner joints. It did make some strong joints, though. I used it to build a wine rack that’s holding up quite well.

For the few times I’ve used edge to edge (making a wider plank) I have just glued and clamped the boards together. A little work with the jack plane, yeah add a planer to the infinite list of tools I want, and the surface is nice and flat.

I saw Norm once on The New Yankee Workshop say that he stopped using biscuits for table tops because after time the biscuit pockets would start to show on the surface. I wonder if a domino would do the same thing.

I’ve never been very impressed with biscuits, seems like a high investment for not much added strength. I kind of feel the same way about the new Festool- I’d rather spend my money on a dedicated mortiser and tablesaw tennon-cutting jig if I had the cash to blow. You could get the same effect as the Festool loose tenon tool by just drilling more dowel holes, plus you don’t have to use the proprietary Festool tenons.

I’ve built a few oak exterior entryway doors from scratch where pocket screws were just not an option. Biscuits are not strong enough for this application on 8 foot high doors. Two mating doors were built the old-fashionned way with continuous splines set into grooves cut in each board. These were flat doors. I built 6 other doors with raised panels - using traditional mortise and tenon joinery for the stiles and rails. I think that the racking potential on large doors is too much for biscuits to handle.

I do use a Dewalt biscuit joiner for cabinetry - where the biscuits are as much a glue-up alignment aid as a a joint strengthener. I’ve learned over the years to position the biscuits close to the center of the stock to avoid bump-out when they swell. Dowels seldom do this and they are the choice when this is a risk. I find that the Dowelmax jig offers very good accuracy and repeatability - that I never had with an old Stanley jig.

If I had nothing better to do with my money - I might try the new Festool Domino - loose tenon joiner.

huh huh butt
mmm…biscuits

I think a lot of it too, has to do with what you have on hand. If you have to go buy a biscuit joiner or a pocket screw jig, or even this doweling jig, those methods will be at a disadvantage over something that you may already have.