1st biscuit joiner lesson...OOPS

[bigfoot15]

Building my first cabinet box and using biscuits.
I thought I did everything right with regards to mating the end to the face edge when I cut the slots.
Guess not. When I put it all together, the ends protrude about 1/8" above the top and below the bottom.
Oh well, that's what trrim router bits are for and that's why I didn't put the fronts on my drawers yet.
Lesson learned....mark the matching faces and make sure to reference the same joiner surface when cuttting. That was my mistake.
I was very particular to measure from the 'front' of all pieces. But when I cut the edge slots with the fence tight to the surface then I lifted the fence and referenced the 'bottom' of the joiner when I cut the faces.

Goes nicely with my extra drawer bottoms.

[Ken Weaver]

Been there - done that - bought that T-shirt.

[mater]

I made the same mistake on my first try. A lesson well learned.

[ironhat]

Been there - done that - bought that T-shirt.

...and burned the shirt!

[messmaker]

First time I used a b.jointer I was putting in a center shelf and using biscuits to line up the vertical divider. I cut the holes in each end using different sides of the divider as a reference. Guess what? Divider was 1/8 out of plumb. I tried to hide it with a face frame and it bothers me to this day.

[JimD]

I like to put both pieces in their location relative to each other and then put pencil marks across both to show where I will put biscuit slots. If you line the jointer up with the marks you reference the right face and in the right location.

Jim

[Joe Lyddon]

Building my first cabinet box and using biscuits.
I thought I did everything right with regards to mating the end to the face edge when I cut the slots.
Guess not. When I put it all together, the ends protrude about 1/8" above the top and below the bottom.
Oh well, that's what trrim router bits are for and that's why I didn't put the fronts on my drawers yet.
Lesson learned....mark the matching faces and make sure to reference the same joiner surface when cuttting. That was my mistake.
I was very particular to measure from the 'front' of all pieces. But when I cut the edge slots with the fence tight to the surface then I lifted the fence and referenced the 'bottom' of the joiner when I cut the faces.

Goes nicely with my extra drawer bottoms.

FYI...
Biscuits have been shown quite a bit on
http://www.thewoodworkingchannel.com/
... it's a moisture problem and what you do during expansion to make it worse.

Maloof doesn't like / use them... he uses dowels instead.

[bigsteel15]

FYI...
Biscuits have been shown quite a bit on
http://www.thewoodworkingchannel.com/
... it's a moisture problem and what you do during expansion to make it worse.

Maloof doesn't like / use them... he uses dowels instead.

It's just as easy to make the same mistake with dowels. I have the Dowelmax and discovered the same issue regarding marking your reference face.
the only thing is the Dowelmax takes most of the problems out by using a better jig system than other units. Then the errors are my own by startiing from the wrong end of the second board.

[onedash]

I have gone through a couple hundred biscuits now and luckily have not made a mistake. Whenever I mark my pieces I make sure thats the side thats up. I did put a few biscuits for perpendicular pieces that were not on the edge and I got a little worried I would screw those up. I just drew a line where the top of the board would be and used that as my reference line and it turned out good.

[Tom Hintz]

See the link below for another common mistake with biscuit joiners. I went through this, finally figured it out and since posting this story, have gotten lots of emails from others who did the same thing.
My biscuit joiner and I get along much better these days!

http://www.newwoodworker.com/misalgnedbiscts.html