I might have been wrong: A closer look at the biscuit joiner. Is it more useful than I thought?

So how about that cookie binding? Okay, okay, I get that a lot of you are really into cookie binding and eleven years of making YouTube videos. I don't think I've ever made a video that ruffled as many feathers as last week's video. well apart from my halloween videos but no one watches them anyway there are actually quite a few people who were apparently so hurt by my opinion that they decided to leave nasty comments about me personally but i just delete them there are probably people who probably just I was algorithm surfers who stumbled upon the video anyway and keep in mind we're talking about a powerful tool here, but many real viewers expressed genuine rational counterpoints to my opinion on cookie assemblers and I took them all seriously.

I really value the opinion of my regular viewers and this certainly wouldn't be the first time I was so

wrong

that I decided to give a carpenter another chance. I just spent $156 on a tool that is probably rarely used just to see if that's where I was

wrong

, this is Amazon's choice for cookie

joiner

s with a 4.5 rating and it's one that people frequently mention on the comments. It is made by the yellow brand, a tool company, and I must say that many people recommended the red brand tool, but there is no way I would spend

more

than a thousand dollars on any tool for my workshop, but those people probably also found the video in their recommended feed and they don't really understand the concept of this, a channel or carpentry for mere mortals, a lot of people said that I misunderstood the meaning of a cracker, which is intended to be a construction tool finished in the workplace, not a woodworking tool, and that makes a lot of sense.

I can see where it could be

useful

for attaching face frames to cabinets without the need for clamps or a nailer. I really appreciate all that information from you working professionals, but to be clear, this is a woodworking channel and I was basing it on a cookie cutter woodworker. "He uses Norm Abrams' new Yankee Workshop, a woodworking and cookie show." The carpenter seems to be used in

more

than a few woodworking shops, so I could only frame my opinion within the context of my program, one focused on teaching how to get started with woodworking and helping people decide whether a particular tool It is necessary to start as a hobbyist.

The biggest objection people had about my video was that my cookie

joiner

wasn't good and that the cookies needed to fit snugly. You can stop leaving those comments now. I

have

had this old

biscuit

joiner for over 15 years. It's the only cookie joiner I

have

. I've ever had it and it's always made those slots pretty loose, so I honestly never knew they were supposed to fit differently, so first of all, let's try the yellow marking tool and see how the cookies fit. Oh yes, clearly, in fact, that's a lot tighter. It's so tight I'd probably have to touch it.

I'm already much more impressed by it than my old cookie assembler. I think it was interesting that of all the comments on that video, very few people were using cookies. carpentry for anything other than joining edge boards. I find this interesting because of all the uses the manual and marketing materials claim this tool is

useful

for. Well I must say I'm quite impressed by it, it's a pretty nice tool. perfect fit, obviously you would need to glue this and clamp it for it to work and no one is claiming that the

biscuit

s are actually adding a lot of extra strength to that joint that the edge joint wouldn't have on its own, but I'm pretty impressed by that, I think it helps a bit with a line, but maybe if you had a board that was really cupped or something and you needed to flatten it, that

might

be a good tool to use, but you know, I'm not sure if I'd really need that.

I mean, I'm still going to put calls on both sides if I'm going to glue it, if I'm going to glue a panel and I'm still going to hold it, but Yeah, it definitely does what people say, it helps align the boards. Finally I

thought

it would be interesting to try the biscuit jointer to make a butt joint of the end of one board to the edge of another board, like to make a frame. I'll do one with the cookie and then upload one without and we'll see which one is stronger, but one thing is for sure about this: the dust collection works great on this, it barely left a mess, so both pieces were drying for about two hours. .

I'm going to hold them and see how strong they are. This is far from a scientific experiment. Yeah, okay, so this is the piece with no reinforcement, just a butt joint glued on and this is the one with the cookie. It didn't take long for that butt joint to fail, so I probably could have given it a little more time to dry, usually. An hour or two is fine in my dry environment here, but it's

been

raining a lot lately, so maybe the humidity had something to do with it not being as heavy as it could have

been

.

I think it will be stronger. In general, obviously, glue it only with the butt joint, so with these new results, let me adjust my overall opinion. I think if you have boards that aren't very flat, adding biscuits will help keep them aligned for gluing, probably being especially useful for long boards where you

might

not want to worry about a bunch of flattening calls, so to get to my Conclusion and how perhaps my

thought

s have changed since last week, early biscuit joiners seem to be very popular with finish joiners on job sites. and that's where the tool really shines primarily for installing cabinet face frames, although some people mention a few other uses.

I also learned that many people consider the $1,000 reading tool to be invaluable, especially in Europe. I found out that it is made by my old biscuit joiner is not suitable and the biscuits should fit tighter than with this new yellow mark tool. It seems to work fine. I could definitely see an improvement when lining up long boards to join the edges together and I'm kind of impressed by how strong it is. Adding to the joy of bread, I may use this method in personal projects in the future, certainly not in carpentry work for mere mortals, it is too specialized, which is why I recommend a carpenter for beginner carpenters, its cost simply does not justify its limitation.

The uses stick to my main list of tools needed to start woodworking, but do I recommend it for more experienced woodworkers? Well, maybe I mean that if you make a lot of frames it would be useful and if you glue a lot of panels if you make a lot. of tables would help a little with alignment. I still think a cookie maker is completely useless. That was probably a little hyperbolic, but I definitely don't think it's completely useless now, but for a woodworking shop I'll put it in the luxury tool category. It's extravagant, but hey, if you like buying tools and trying them out, you might You'll enjoy them, but you'll also wonder why you bought them when you only use them once or twice a year.

Well, quick before you go. I wanted to announce the launch date of my next online course, The Weekend Workshop, as you may know, I spent the last six months redesigning my entire store and working on this course. In this course you will learn how to transform a store. of any size into your personal woodworking sanctuary, even if you have to share it with a car, lawn supplies, or other household trash, plus guide you through the process of structuring your workshop to get the most out of it. Also get access to 14 different store projects that are designed specifically with the small home store in mind.

The course will open on January 15th for $97.00, giving you lifetime access to all course materials and all the projects I want. give you a sneak peek of the course by giving you access to one of the course projects right now in this drop down work center, head over to the weekend workshop communication and download free US or metric plans and get access to too a video that will walk you through the first steps of building this. I think you will really like this project, thanks for watching everyone.