Dry Fitting Biscuit Joinery

[JSUPreston]

When you open various electronic items you will find the little packs of silica. I keep these and pop one into my storage containers for biscuits and dowels.

Chicklets!

[rnelson0]

You can always cut an oversized biscuit hole and use the next smallest biscuit size. If you are just using it for alignment, this should be enough.

[LCHIEN]

Ditto for me AND I'm using P-C biscuits with a P-C joiner. It doesn't happen
for every single biscuit but enough that I keep a pair of pliers handy. I also
keep my mallet handy to knock them in during glue-up.

I've begun tossing in desiccant bags into the biscuit bottle with limited
success. Not too many have broken using pliers, though.

Never come close to breaking them with the pliers, many dry biscuits will press in by hand or when dry fitted by the second piece pushing them together. With 0- and 10-sized biscuits, there's not much to grab onto and in Houston sweaty hands grabbing the biscuits doesn't help much either with grip or keeping them dry.

When gluing I often tap them home with a rubber mallet to make sure they are seated all the way (at least 50% or past the mid-line) especially if i have not dry-fitted in case i hadn't run the cutter in all the way.

[cabinetman]

Biscuits can be used for assembly, but it gets obvious, even with dry fitting, not the best method for joinery. IMO, it's actually a very poor method, with very little cross strength. Also not a predictable alignment method. Just about any traditional joinery method is better than biscuits.
.

[shoottx]

The one other issue with biscuit alignment is having the biscuit slots align. I hav found by marking the carcass for the slots and then using a bench top or other flat surface as a register point the alignment is better. if the slots are tipped the biscuits will bind.