Popular Woodworking 2000-11 № 118, страница 22

The evolution of an angle grinder

to a higher form, these tools can make short work of many joinery tasks.

here are two opinions on biscuit joiners. The naysayers state that a biscuit joint is a shortcut to get out of making an arguably stronger and more time-consuming joint: the mortise and tenon. Then there's the biscuit joiner users who are rolling on the floor laughing.

There's a little truth to both of these statements. The fact of the matter is that a good biscuit joint is almost as good as a traditional joint and it takes a fraction of the time. That's why these machines are so popular in commercial cabinet shops. Biscuit joiners became popular in European cabinet shops about 20 years ago

when Lamello introduced its first model.

If you want to get into biscuit joinery, you'll have to consider a few features: the fence, the biscuit sizes you will use, dust collection, power and noise.

The Fence

The basic machine is an angle grinder with a blade and a fence. The fence is the key feature to evaluate. Its complexity can vary from the simple plastic job on the Ryobi DBJ50, to the sophisticated engineered fence on the Porter Cable 557. Fences on the basic models will let you cut a joint at 0 and 45 degrees. Move up the feature scale

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14 Popular Woodworking November 2000