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How to Choose a Biscuit Joiner

In a recent survey; woodworkers identified biscuit joiners as the tool they were most interested in adding to their collection.

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By George Vondriska

The popularity of biscuit joiners seems to grow on a daily basis. It's no surprise, since biscuits are an easy, fast and strong joinery technique. Thinking of adding a biscuit joiner to your shop? There's quite a price swing in the field. You can spend from under $100 to $800. Whether it's price or features, each machine has something to offer. If you're ready to "take the plunge," so to speak, and buy a biscuit joiner, here's some helpful buying advice.

Why Use a Biscuit Joiner?

If you've used dowels to reinforce a joint, raise your hand. If, after struggling to assemble the parts you doweled together you swore you'd never use dowels again, raise your hand. Hmm, same hands go up. Dowels are plenty strong, but they're fussy to get aligned properly. Biscuits, on the other hand, are much easier to install. They can also be used in many of the same places as dowels. Think of a biscuit as a simple way to add a spline to a joint. Even if you miss your mark when cutting the biscuit slot, (photo next page) the parts will

still go together because biscuits are very forgiving when it comes to side-to-side alignment. They also provide dead-on registration of part surfaces. That aspect is where biscuit joiners really shine. The tool's fence registers both joint surfaces accurately every time, and the biscuit strengthens the joint — just like a dowel would.

Applications

One of my primary uses for a biscuit joiner is fastening solid wood edging to plywood (photo next page). As the veneer on plywood gets thinner, getting perfect alignment between the solid wood and the plywood becomes more critical. If the solid ends up below the veneer, you've really got

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