Here’s a quick throwback to a couple of casement windows I did for a house in Bristol a few months back. I’m always happy to be asked to make windows, doors and staircases (amongst other things) because it’s lovely making things properly using techniques that have been honed through centuries of skilled trial and error.
I’m afraid I’m not part of the Festool domino fraternity. I’m usually all for new technology and products but - whilst dominoes are great and have some superb uses within new age woodworking - I disagree that a bunch of compressed beech dominoes acting to replace the tenon is as good, let alone better, idea than just doing it properly. Beech being well known not to have particularly good rot resistance properties, would be the first to ‘go’ over time. It’s unlikely you’d make the rest of the external structure out of beech for this reason so you’ve got two different species moving at different rates and cracking glue lines - allowing water in to kick the rotting process off nice and quickly. So you remedy this by making your own dominoes out of a rot resistant timber (probably the same as the rest of the structure) and you’re now very pleased with yourself. It’s only taken you a couple of hours to find some spare material, machine it up, check it and finesse it to get just the right fit. Then cut it into smaller lengths and chamfer the ends. But then you realise that the customer wanted an ovolo moulding running around the insides. So now you’ve got to decide if you’re happy to just mitre the moulding (which we all know won’t look good for long) or you scribe it. If you decide to scribe - you’ll sit there wondering if all this extra effort was worth it.
Rant over.
Traditional joinery is a joy to make, use and if maintained properly, will last almost indefinitely. I’ve heard plenty of furniture makers talking about making heirloom quality things, only doing things in a certain way because they know it lasts through the generations. We often overlook the things hiding in plain sight. The front door, the bay windows, the staircase with the beautifully curved handrail running alongside. These things have been quietly doing as they were intended to, day in, day out, season after season, as we carry our nice new ‘heirloom quality’ things in, and up the stairs to sit beneath the bedroom window. And it’ll always be my pleasure to be a part in berthing these unsung heroes!
