Pantorouter vs Domino.
#31
(08-28-2020, 07:36 PM)Maple Leaf Wrote: John Tenyk's Horizontal Router Mortiser is the cat's meow. 

I don't have one but a friend of mine does, and he agrees with your assessment.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
Reply
#32
I know this has been asked before, and there was much speculation but I haven’t heard a definitive answer.

Does anyone know when Festools patent runs out on the domino?

I’d like to have a 700 to go with my 500 but for the minimal use it would see, would probably buy the knockoff rather than festool brand.
Reply
#33
I do not know, but my 500 was (well) used when I bought it and it's dated 2007. So they are at least 13 years old.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
Reply
#34
DF500 was released in 2007, DF700 some years later. If they hold multiple patents as well as extensions, it could be another 10 years or more before we'd see any "clones" in the market?

Simon
Reply
#35
(08-29-2020, 05:37 AM)fredhargis Wrote: I don't have one but a friend of mine does, and he agrees with your assessment.

I'd be curious as well and wonder if they can sell it significantly less and still duplicate the quality of the tool.   A few years ago someone on FOG (maybe even a festool employee) posted a pic of the Dominos internals and explained how complicated it was and how tight the tolerances had to be.
Reply
#36
The tight tolerances is a good point. A poorly designed or executed machine plus user issues could render a very bad domino joint, defeating the purpose of using the machine. It's not like a cordless drill or ROS that you could still get your job done even though the quality of the tool concerned might be second rate.

If I really needed an xl for an important project, I wouldn't wait, but get it and finish the project. Wait a couple of years (letting the annual price increases do their wonder), if necessary and sell it with any price difference treated as rental cost.

Simon
Reply
#37
(08-28-2020, 09:35 PM)jussi Wrote: If this is in your area looks like there's a Domino XL being sold in an Estate sale.  Along with some other really nice tools

https://www.estatesales.net/NY/Ontario/14519/2621562

I've been to estate sales like that (as recent as two years ago). That's why I promised myself I wouldn't get a new machine unless I planned to sell it soon as it saw little use in my shop. And I wouldn't leave behind collections like that for my family to handle. I will sell all my tools (save those for house keeping) when I don't even do at least one decent furniture project a year (making a box or some picture frames is not considered one of such projects in my book), whether out of health reasons/age or due to lack of interest/demand.

Simon
Reply
#38
There's an XL for sale on Sawmill Creek.  

John
Reply
#39
As I mentioned I built a pantarouter several years ago, and it’s a neat machine with lots of functionality.

What I found finicky, was setting it up.
Once set up it could crank out lots of production level joinery very well, but getting it set didn’t seem worth the time most of the time.

My progression was to then buy a used Leigh FMT and it also was great to use once setup, but took some tuning to get it going.

Then I happened upon a domino 500 and it’s certainly much easier to setup and store.

I sold the FMT and the pantarouter hasn’t been off the shelf since I got the Leigh FMT.

Now that I have a CNC I wonder if it would be worth pulling the pantarouter out and making some templates with the Cnc.

The precision and repeatability of the Cnc may lend itself well to getting good pantarouter templates that don’t need as much tedious tuning.

To be fair, it looks like the commercially available pantarouter has addressed several of these setup concerns and has solved most of the ones I recall having.
Reply
#40
Video 
Tom Silva, of This Old House uses Festool's entire product line.  Perhaps he gets these for free from the manufacturer.  I don't know.  But he uses the Domino.  He has always impressed me with his skills and knowledge.  I would take that as a very good recommendation for the Domino.
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)

Product Recommendations

Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.