45 Degree Dock Plate Stops: The Seneca Woodworking 45 Degree Dock Plate Stop works with our Dock Plate XL to make mortising 45 degree trim pieces a breeze! This stop is a fixed 45 degree angle and comes in a "right" and "left" version as part of a set. Stops can be used individually or together; To use together, two of the same "right" or "left" stop are needed to clamp both sides of the workpiece.
Mini Magnetic Square: The Seneca Woodworking Mini Magnetic Square is the second in a series of tools that raise the bar on what a precision woodworking square can be! Designed using principles similar to those used in aerospace engineering, this square is lightweight but strong, perfect for carrying in a pocket, apron or tool belt and capable of jobs small and large. This square comes with four embedded neodymium magnets that increase its versatility beyond that of other squares its size. These magnets can be used to keep the square handy...attached to your saw, toolbox, workbench, or even your refrigerator. They also can assist in tasks such as making sure your sawblade or table is set to 90 degrees. CNC machined in the USA from aircraft grade aluminum and hard anodized, this square is more durable than standard anodized squares and will last a lifetime!
Domino Trim Plate: We're constantly asked to come up with a way to make removing Domino tenons from a project easier after a dry-fit. This Domino Trim Plate from DFM Toolworks does just that! It provides an easy way to trim your existing Dominos to a smaller width that will have a looser fit that allows easy removal after dry fitting. Just mount the Trim Plate in a vice, and tap your tenons through it to trim them the perfect amount for dry fitting. It covers domino sizes from 4mm up to 14mm.
This plate is precision machined and ground 3/8" thick A2 Tool Steel and hardened to 59 to 61 Rockwell C for long lasting edges. It can be placed in your vise or over a dog hole with a small bucket underneath to catch the dominos.
3/4" Clamp Dog: The Seneca Woodworking 3/4" Clamp Dog™ bench dog is a combination bench dog and clamp mounting plate designed for workbenches with 3/4" dog holes. The dog portion allows you to take advantage of the grid of holes in your bench to use as a backstop for clamping or planing or making cuts. The clamp mount portion of the Clamp Dog™ is pre-drilled with mounting holes that allow you to attach either a Kreg Automaxx Bench clamp, or a Bessey Auto-Adjust Toggle Clamp for quick, accurate clamping of your workpiece.
Tenon Flush Trim Protectors: Both the Domino and Domino XL make through tenons easy to create but when it comes time to trim them flush, how do you do that quickly without damaging the surrounding work surface? We've finally created a solution to this problem: Tenon Flush Trim Protectors.
Tenon Flush Trim Protectors are stainless steel plates, 0.020" thick that can be slipped over protruding domino tenons to protect the surrounding workpiece from damage while they are trimmed with a saw. This speeds up the process of creating through tenon joints, saving you time and money as well as making it easier to create a better final project.
Tenon Flush Trim Protectors are available for Domino sizes 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm.
Mortise Depth Spacer for Domino XL DF700: If you use our Small Mortise Kit on the Domino XL DF 700, you've probably noticed that the lowest setting on the Domino XL plunge depth gauge is 15mm. This can be a problem if you're making a mortise in the face of 1/2" or 5/8" nominal plywood, as the mortise will tear through the other side of the material if the Domino is plunged until it hits the stop. The Mortise Depth Spacers for the Domino XL solve this problem by limiting the depth to which the Domino XL can be plunged.
This set of three spacers will limit the plunge depths of the standard length (5mm, 6mm, 8mm diameters) to 5mm, 10mm, or 12mm depths. Just choose the spacer with the depth you need and snap it onto the Domino XL guide tube. The spacer will prevent the Domino from plunging any deeper than you want it to... making sure none of your mortises tear through the opposite side of the material and making your joinery come together even faster!
Battery Wall Mount and Workstation Battery Mount for Festool 18v Batteries: Rechargeable tools are great until they aren't; If you've got a dead power tool battery, then no work is getting done! For years we've been storing our spare batteries in Systainers, but that can be a hassle when the Systainer ends up at the bottom of a stack. Keeping batteries easily accessible where you need them is a great way to keep track of charged batteries, keep your shop organized, and prevent interruptions in your work.
Our Battery Wall Mount attach almost anywhere with two wood screws and will hold all your Festool 18v batteries where you need them. They work in any orientation and are designed so that the batteries "click" into place and are released using the pushbuttons on the battery, so there's no worry about a battery falling off a holder, especially if you use them in a mobile setting.
Our Workstation Battery Mount slides into the T-slot on the side of a Festool MFT table and allows you to store a spare Festool 18v battery, meaning a dead battery never has to take you away from your workstation again!
0" Offset Domiplate XL: The Seneca Woodworking Domiplate XL™ is our best selling fence solution designed for the Festool Domino XL DF 700 mortising tool. With a fixed offset built into each side, it eliminates the possibility of error due to 'fence drift' and greatly speeds the setup of the Domino for mortising, saving you time and money from misaligned mortises. This version of the Domiplate XL is setup for 1/2" ply on one side, and has a 0" offset on the other side. If you have a workpiece that's too large or awkward to put on a bench for mortising, the 0" Offset Domiplate will allow you to still use the bottom of the Domino as reference and easily make mortises in workpieces that won't fit on your bench.
Updated Parallel Guide Brackets: We've improved our Rail Bracket design to create a better fit between the Rail Brackets and T-Track. This new design improves rigidity of the system, reducing the chance of errors and improving accuracy! Two threaded holes on each side of the rail bracket allow the addition of set screws that will ensure your T-Track never moves out of place!
Mortise Depth Spacer for Domino DF500: The Festool Domino DF 500 is a versatile tool, but occasionally we find that when joining thin stock, the mortise depth limit setting doesn't stop shallow enough. So we created our Mortise Depth Spacers for the Domino DF 500. This set of spacers will let you fine tune the mortise depth from 11mm down to 1mm in 1mm increments, making sure that you can get a secure joint without worrying about your mortise blowing out the opposite side of your workpiece.
To use: Just choose the spacer with the depth you need and snap it onto the Domino guide tube. The spacer will prevent the Domino from plunging any deeper than you want it to... making sure none of your mortises tear through the opposite side of the material and making your joinery come together even faster!
Mortise Center Finders: With the Mortise Center Finders it's easy to find the center of mortises quickly without measuring. Just slip a tenon into the mortise then slip the center finder over the tenon. It's easy to then mark the current workpiece or an adjacent workpiece with the matching mortise center locations for quick mortising and easy joinery every time!
The set of Mortise Center Finders includes seven center finders for mortise sizes 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm to cover all mortise/tenon sizes for the Festool Domino DF 500 and Domino XL DF 700. Also included is an organizer stand that holds all seven center finders.
Foam Storage Inserts: Keep your Domiplates protected and organized with our Domiplate Foam Storage Insert! This insert fits any Sys 3 M Systainer and has place to store two Domiplates and multiple sets of Domiplate Offset Shims in their protective storage case. Also available for Domiplate XLs.
4 Inch Saddle T-Square: The Seneca Woodworking 4" Saddle T-Square is the latest in our line of precision woodworking layout and measuring tools. This 4" long T-Square simplifies laying out tenons, mortises, rabbets, hinge locations and other common layout tasks with a handful of innovative features.
Our black anodizing and laser engraved scales on both edges gives a high contrast that makes reading the scales easy. Each scale is laser engraved over a chamfered edge, which makes measuring easy and reduces the possibility of parallax error. 1/32" graduations are perfect for precision woodworking.
Saddle T-Squares come with dual sets of marking holes spaced towards opposite edges of the square. This means when using the holes to scribe lines to an edge or to an inside corner is easier as there's less clearance between the marking holes and the edge of the tool. These holes are spaced every 1/32" apart for precision marking and are 1mm in diameter; perfect for use with 0.7mm or 0.9mm mechanical pencils.
Guide Rail Dog Hooks: Seneca Woodworking Guide Rail Dog Hooks are a set of attachments for the Festool guide rail that quickly and easily secure your guide rail to a pair of dogs on your MFT table. This ensures that your guide rail is always square with your table, and also adds an extra layer of security to prevent your guide rail from moving out of position before or even during a cut.
To use the Guide Rail Dog Hooks, simply rest your guide rail on top of your workpiece and slide the rail slightly away from you so that the hooks engage with the dogs. The guide rail will register perfectly every time due to their slot that is tapered on one side and parallel with the guide rail on the other. This means that when the hooks connect with the dogs, you'll get a tight fit free of movement, and the guide rail will automatically register in the same place every time.
]]>We’ve been in business for a Decade! February 17, 2012 is when we opened our eCommerce store doors for the first time, and what an exciting day it was. Seneca Woodworking wasn’t the first business I’d started but it was the first eCommerce store I’d ever run and my first business that was more serious than a side hustle that only made extra “beer money”. To celebrate we’re kicking off our Founder’s Day sale! Starting today and running through the weekend. (Details in our email)
The sale is a great deal, but as I write this email, it’s not even what I’m the most excited about…
I know our marketing agency will yell at me because I didn’t cut the email here and just tell you to go buy stuff… I’m going to keep going because I want to tell you about the future…
As I wrote the previous two emails in this series, I had no idea what the overwhelming response would be. My inbox is full of positive responses from our amazing customers….I had no idea you would be this interested in our story and I appreciate all of you taking the time to reach out. I’ll respond to each of your emails…but it might take me a few weeks…
Entrepreneurship has been a passion of mine ever since I started doing penny candy arbitrage in the 4th grade (that’s a story for later…). It’s not surprising that a huge number of our customers are also entrepreneurs; as makers, crafters, artists, craftsmen, educators and influencers… you’re not only responsible for the work you do, but for running the business that puts food on the table. For years our physical tools have been a small part of helping you do the creative physical work you do, but I think we can do more to help our entrepreneurs grow their businesses and elevate their lifestyle, and I think that will be an integral part of our mission for the next 10 years. I can’t begin to express how thankful I am that I’ve been able to be self-employed for this long, running a business doing what I love. I think we can do more to help you do the same thing and I have some exciting ideas as to how we can do that.
I’ve been writing a lot this week, and I don’t want to pack too much in here all at once, plus we still have a few details to work out, so I’ll be following up on this next week.
In the meantime, the sale is on now! Go fill your toolboxes!
-Ryan
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So our new Haas CNC machining center had been delivered at the end of 2016, We got it wired in and by the beginning of 2017 it was ready to go.. All the tooling and workholding had been delivered, the CAM was programmed and it was finally time to give it a go. It’s hard to overstate the amount of pressure that was riding on this moment. Buying a CNC machining center was the biggest purchase that I had made up to this point in my adult life and the future of my business was at hand. It was also potentially one of the most costly mistakes I could make. If I had made a mistake in programming it and caused a crash, that could easily cost 10’s of thousands of dollars for repairs and a huge setback for our business. Because I knew that we should be making our own parts soon, I hadn’t placed the normal restock orders with our vendor that had been making them, so if anything went wrong, we had a limited amount of inventory left to sell.
It was finally time to machine my first part: one of our Domi-shims. I loaded the code in the machine, put a piece of stock in the machine, and set the program to run several inches above the piece of stock. This would let me watch the various tools work to see if they were doing at least roughly what they should be doing without actually cutting any metal. This would hopefully give me a chance to stop the machine before a crash if anything unexpected happened. I crossed my fingers and hit the ‘start’ button… Everything worked just like I’d seen on YouTube dozens of times. The machine changed through all of the necessary tools and appeared to do what it was supposed to, so it was time to make a part ‘for real’. I set the program to run on the piece of aluminum stock, and hit the start button. Everything seemed to go as planned…and then all of a sudden there was a loud *SNAP*. I immediately hit the Emergency Stop button.
Unexpected loud noises aren’t something one wants to hear when running a new CNC program for the first time. After I changed my pants, I looked at the machine to see what happened. I had broken a tap. Not a big deal… less than a $40 mistake and an easy one to fix at that. It turned out I had the thread pitch set wrong in the CAM software, so the CNC machine was pushing the tap into the part faster than it could thread which caused it to break. After a quick change of the code, I ran the program again. This time everything went as planned. It was official: In January 2017 we had brought production manufacturing back to Clarion!
Fully manufacturing our tools in house meant a lot more work to do, so that month was also when I hired Andy on as our first full time employee! You’ve probably seen him on our social media a few times. He came on board part time in 2015 to help with tradeshows, and he’s been a part of the Seneca family ever since!
There’s so much more that’s happened in the last decade than I can put into words here, and we couldn’t have done any of it without you, our amazing customers! So, to celebrate this year as fully as we can, we’ve got many more surprises and much more content planned throughout the rest of the year. We’ve actually got a surprise lined up for tomorrow that we know most of you are going to enjoy, so stay tuned. We can’t wait to share more, so follow us on Instagram, Youtube and TikTok to make sure you don’t miss out on everything we’ve got coming your way!
We’ve got a big surprise for you tomorrow…
]]>Around this time we did our first trade shows; Dad and I kicked things off by attending The Woodworking Shows Columbus, and Woodworking in America. Dad’s health made long days on the show floor difficult, so soon after my brother Kyle joined the company and was making the tradeshow rounds with me. By this time It was becoming clear that my apartment wouldn’t contain the business for much longer, so I began looking for commercial space.
Clarion Pennsylvania is a small town of about 6000 people. The last manufacturing facility located in the boro was an Owens Illinois glass plant that closed up shop in 2010, taking almost 500 jobs with it. Initially in my search, I thought about moving the company back to Seneca where my dad’s woodshop was located and where I started the company. However, the exodus of manufacturing from the area left a lot of empty commercial space that was perfect for a business like ours. It only took a quick search before I found a large commercial space in Clarion that gave us room for growth and was in our budget, so in the spring of 2016, Seneca Woodworking finally got a warehouse!
Up until this time we had been purchasing our machined parts from a job shop, but this had several disadvantages. First, this meant a long lead time for inventory. The way many shops schedule their production, it was 4-12 weeks from the time we placed an order until the time we received the components. This made forecasting to manage inventory tricky. Even though we could look at past sales and make an educated guess at what our inventory levels should be, we were small enough that taking on a new dealer or getting mentioned by someone on youtube could clear out our inventory and keep us “out of stock” for the next 12 weeks. Increasing our inventory seemed like an obvious solution to this problem, but it’s bad to over-buy because excess inventory eats up working capital and makes it more difficult to make changes or improvements to products if there are huge inventories of parts we have to sell first.
The second problem with using third party manufacturers is that we still had to wait 4-6 weeks for prototype parts, which meant it took a long time to prototype new ideas and get them to market.
It soon became clear that opening our own machine shop to make our tools in-house was the best option. Throughout my life I’d set foot in a few machine shops and even though I’d never run a CNC machine, I knew just enough machining knowledge to be dangerous. I knew that Haas CNC machines were probably a good fit for what we would be doing; they’re a good value for the money, USA made with a great community for support and training. Two of the shops that made our parts used Haas machines and so did a few of our competitors, so I took a trip to the nearest dealer and talked through the type of parts we needed to make and found a machine that was a good fit for us. I put in the order, and was told we’d take delivery in about three months. So, all I had to do now was learn to run it…
Over the years it’s been easier to learn the basics of CNC machining. Many people learn by buying an entry level CNC router, like a Shapeoko , Xcarve, or a Shaper. These machines can be had for a few thousand dollars and they’re relatively forgiving and easy to fix if you make a mistake and break something. This would have been a great way to learn, but we needed a machine that was capable of doing high volume precision parts.
Going to a trade school followed by an apprenticeship is another great way to learn CNC machining, except I didn’t have the years of time it takes to do that: I was bootstrapping a business and had a machine being delivered in three months that needed to start paying for itself ASAP. Taking our own production from external vendors to in-house was a pivotal point for our business, and an obstacle I had to overcome.
I’m going to level with you here and talk about something that is a bit taboo for most of us that spend out days working with our hands and solving problems. As my dad used to say, “I thought I was wrong once but turns out I was mistaken”. I think most of us have been to that place in life where we came back from Home Depot with parts for a project that was maybe a little too big. Or we didn’t realize that the free firestarter that came with that new grill is actually an “instruction manual” that might hold some insight as to why there are extra parts left over after assembly is “complete.” When we find ourselves in that place, there’s one tool that time and time again is the resolution.
I turned to YouTube.
For the next three months I watched sooo much youtube. I learned how to program toolpaths for our parts in CAM and how to set up and run the machine that would be delivered soon.
Fortunately I also had some friends and family that had experience in this industry and were able to answer some of my questions along the way.
Even with this prepwork, it was hard to prepare mentally for what came next. At that point, buying that CNC machine was the most expensive thing I’d purchased in my adult life. A quick search for “CNC machining crashes” on YouTube will yield some horrifically expensive results. I’d be lying if I said my fingers and toes weren’t crossed the first time I hit the “Start” button, because I'd soon find out if the result was a precision woodworking tool, or an expensive repair bill…
]]>The past.
The story of Seneca Woodworking really starts with the story of my Dad and our first product: the Domiplate. My dad has been a lifelong tinkerer, inventor and someone who’s gifted with anything mechanical; As a kid I grew up spending weekends playing with tools and building things in his shop and getting my footing as a “maker” spending time across many disciplines; woodworking, metalworking, electronics, etc. Sometime around 2007 as he was winding down for retirement, he started upgrading the woodworking tools in his shop, adding a lot of Festool tools and spending a lot of time talking about his woodworking passion on several of the Festool related groups and forums. This led to the invention of the “Domino Shoe plate” (which was quickly renamed the Domiplate” ) in 2010. After showing the jig on the forums and finding out others wanted their own, he had a local machine shop produce a small run of 20 pieces of the tool to sell to others on the forums. These 20 pieces quickly sold out, causing him to reorder “a double batch” from the same shop, which also sold out just as quickly. This momentum looked like we might have an actual business, so late in 2011 I created Seneca Woodworking, then in February of 2012 we opened our ecommerce store!
At the time the Domiplate was a bare aluminum plate. People who bought it had to add their own knobs and screws, and most even wrote on it with a sharpie to indicate which side was which. I realized this “DIY” tool could be better, so, I had the Domiplates anodized, then laser engraved with our logo and dimensions, and I sourced a proper knob and mounting screws to make the Domiplate into a polished product.
There was no shortage of problems to solve, so Dad and I kept creating other tools. We created our Parallel Guide System, and then our Small Mortise Kit. For the first few years, I ran the business by myself from my apartment: my spare bedroom became a warehouse, and I added a laser engraver and 3d printer to my main living area.
I started getting weekly deliveries from our cardboard box supplier. I’m pretty sure my UPS driver didn’t love carrying them up the stairs to my second story apartment, but to his credit he never complained.
My spare bedroom “warehouse” quickly filled up with finished goods, and the industrial equipment motif wasn’t the best look for a dining and living area, so it was clear we were outgrowing the space. Things finally came to a head one day while in the middle of a torrential downpour I got a call from a Freight delivery company…letting me know he had a pallet of cardboard boxes for me. Apparently our shipping supply order was larger than they would ship via UPS, and the company had upgraded our order to LTL freight without my noticing. The truck driver was ready to dump our pallet on the street… but I convinced him to maneuver the truck into the apartment’s back parking lot, where I proceeded to unwrap the pallet and sprint into the apartment with the various bundles of boxes before they could get fully soaked in the rail. It was time for an upgrade.
To be continued….
]]>Hey everyone, it’s Ryan, President of Seneca Woodworking. We’ve been quieter than usual on social media, so I want to update everyone on what’s happening here at Seneca Woodworking. This story is longer than our usual e-mails, so I’ll send out several messages and blog posts on this topic.
Like with everyone else, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a lot of uncertainty here. We’re based in Pennsylvania, and when the governor announced that all “non-essential” businesses in the state were to shut down, the gravity of the situation sank in. I had a lot of questions rooted in fear:
There’s a lot in life we can’t control, but there's also a lot that we *can*. When things get tough, It’s important to keep calm, avoid overreacting and focus on the things you actually can control.
Any time you fly on a commercial airplane, you’re given the instruction to ‘put on your oxygen mask first’. This wisdom applies to many aspects of life: If you don't preserve your own wellbeing, it ultimately becomes more difficult or impossible to help others.
It took us a couple days to slow down, get out of panic mode, and regroup. Luckily, the state’s guidelines allowed us to keep shipping orders. The short term might be rough, but it looked like we’d be okay—even if it meant we would have to tighten our belts and eat ramen noodles a few times a week.
Worldwide, many “open source” healthcare initiatives were created to ease the shortage of PPE and other pandemic-related equipment, like ventilators. After researching the effectiveness of various initiatives, we determined that we could best help by manufacturing face shields that we 3D printed and laser cut here in our shop.
So, we got to work! We collaborated with healthcare organizations to refine our prototypes and assembled a network of people to help with 3D printing. We spent about a month making face shields and delivered them to facilities like hospitals, long-term care homes, doctor’s offices, visiting nurse associations, and dentist offices. Although it was great to produce face shields within only a few days, it takes over two hours to print each shield. The need far outstretched our production capabilities, even while leveraging a sizable printer farm.
Also, similar to a national toilet paper shortage, we encountered a raw material shortage because of other people scrambling to manufacture PPE, making it increasingly difficult to find the appropriate filament, PETG more so. One day, I called about 20 different plastic suppliers and discovered that everyone was out of stock of the PETG and polycarbonate plastic sheets that we used for the clear part of the face shields.
We contacted an injection molding company and helped to develop a streamlined, lighter version of our headband that could be quickly mass-produced. Due to the unavailability of reliable supplies, we got creative. Our solution: three-hole-punched transparency sheets. The stationery section of our nation’s supply chain hasn’t been stressed yet, so these are in abundant supply. Our reusable plastic headband is easily sterilized, and the clear plastic shields are cheap to replace. We can produce thousands of face shields per day and provide them at a price below the average market rate.
We went from barely being able to keep up with our local need for face shields, to now having far more capacity than is currently being utilized. We want to put this capacity to good use.
Our goal is to help as many people as possible, but we’re experts in manufacturing, not raising money, nor are we experienced at running a charity. We decided the best way to approach this is to make our face shields available for a price that’s below the average market rate. This allows us to focus on what we do best, scaling production as needed to help people on the front lines of this crisis and hopefully giving much needed jobs to people in our community. Focusing on keeping the price below the normal market average in a time when we’ve seen prices on PPE skyrocket ensures we can help the most people.
This is where we need your help:
We don't have a huge marketing budget for the face shields, because our goal is to keep the price low. If you're on the front lines fighting against Covid-19, we have face shields available for purchase in our store. If you have friends or family working on the front lines, or if you know of a business in your area that's having trouble getting the PPE they need, please let them know we have these available. Click HERE to learn more!
]]>Preorders Begin Shipping December 20, 2019
The Seneca Woodworking 3" Space Square is a
We're taking precision woodworking tools to a higher level!
We firmly believe that listening to our customers allows us to build better tools, and we've had an overwhelming amount of customers tell us that they aren't happy with the current precision squares on the market, so we took on the task of designing squares made to boldly go where no woodworking tool has gone before. Introducing, the Seneca Woodworking Space Square series!
We started by looking to the future...
The basic elements of many traditional woodworking tools have remained unchanged for years. We started by questioning how we could improve basic concepts that have worked for centuries. We decided to approach designing this square by looking at the future. What better way to get inspiration than by looking at great achievements and amazing feats of engineering in aviation and space exploration. We decided we could make a high tech square, by using high tech computer CAD simulation...similar to the techniques used to design spacecraft... to eliminate weight and extra material while still creating a strong and precise tool. The result is a square that is futuristic, both in engineering and design philosophy. It feels great in your hand and won't weigh you down in a pocket, toolbelt or work apron!
But we never lost sight of the past...
Henry Ford once said "you can have any color you want as long as it's black". Our Aluminum Space Squares come in black hard-coat type III anodizing. We do this because we try not to value form over function. Hard-coat anodize doesn't come in bright colors, only black and a natural grey color. Some manufacturers by default anodize their products bright colors like red, blue, or green. That's great for aesthetics, but the end result is a product that's less durable than a hard-coat anodized product. We believe in making hard-coat anodizing...and QUALITY, our "standard!"
The Right Stuff.
We're a hard-working team, and we love making tools for hard-working people like you. Like all of our tools, our Space Squares are designed and manufactured right here in our own shop in Clarion, PA. We like to think our squares are like a piece of the American Dream you can hold in your hand, and use to build your own dream project!
Always Ready to Launch
We're making CNC machined wall mount brackets for this and all the future tools in our "Space Square" series. This makes it easy to mount and display the square on your shop wall for easy access!
Availability
Production for our first round of Space Squares is almost finished: We're opening preorders today, and all orders from our first production run will start shipping on December 20th. Once our first production run sells out, our next production run is expected to be ready to ship February 15th, so make sure you get in on this first round if you don't want to wait! CLICK HERE to order now!
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If you're considering lose tenon joinery with either of the Festool Domino joiners, make sure you check out this article on the Woodcraft blog. They have some good accessory recommendations too!
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We've had requests for more sizes of our custom sized cutters for the Domino XL / DF700, so today we're releasing a new size: 1/4" cutters! If you frequently make your own tenons, these cutters are just the thing for through tenon applications with their 50mm cutting depth. We have a limited supply available today. Once they sell out we won't have more until late November / early December. CLICK HERE to buy now!
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The Seneca Woodworking Small Mortise Kit bundles three of our most popular products together in one convenient kit that allows you to make mortises as small as 4mm with your Domino XL, greatly expanding its capabilities. The kit includes our RTS-500 Cutter Adapter for using DF500 cutters on your DF700, along with a shim and thickness gauge that allow quick fence adjustment for centering on plywood from ½” to 1”. Designed and manufactured in the USA. The Small Mortise Kit is available in our online store HERE.
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Fine Woodworking contributor and furniture maker Tim Celeski recently reviewed several of our products on the Fine Woodworking blog. Check out what Tim had to say about our Domiplate and Imperial Fence Gauges on the Fine Woodworking Blog!
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After releasing our DF500 Imperial Thickness Gauge, we had many requests for the same product for the DF700. Developing a height gauge for the DF700 has always been our plan, however there were a few engineering decisions to be made. While the DF500 has been an essential for working with common plywood thicknesses used in cabinet making, the Domino XL/DF700 has a larger fence height range and is used in a wider variety of applications by our customers. This wider fence range combined with the fact that the height gauge only has 5 index positions, meant we needed to make some tough decisions on which "stops" to include in the gauge. Our solution was to design three separate height gauges, with the following groups of fence offset stops:
Gauge 1: 5/8", 3/4", 7/8", 1", 1-1/8"
Gauge 2: 1", 1-1/8" 1-1/4", 1-3/8", 1-1/2"
Gauge 3: 5/8", 3/4", 1", 1-1/4", 1-1/2"
An important distinction to note: The Domino DF500 ships from the factory with a "THICKNESS gauge," and the Domino XL DF700 ships with a "HEIGHT" gauge. The thickness gauge positions the fence approximately 1/2 of the indicated dimension relative to the cutter centerline. The height gauge indicates the actual distance from the fence to the cutter centerline. We have also designed our DF500 and DF700 gauges as thickness and height gauges respectively.
All three Height Gauges will be machined from Delrin material, and are a direct replacement for the gauge included with the Domino XL. The gauge can be installed in seconds using just a Torx driver
The Imperial Height Gauges should be available for purchase by March. If you'd like to be notified when they are available, you can subscribe to our mailing list.
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Gregor Halenda built some cabinets for his new garage with the Festool Domino and the Seneca Woodworking Domiplate. He documented the whole process over at Garage Journal. Check it out!
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The Imperial Thickness Gauge is a fast way to quickly adjust the offset of your Domino DF500 fence to center on a variety of imperial sized ply.
The gauge installs in less than a minute using a Torx T10 bit (not included), and is a direct replacement for the metric thickness gauge included with your Domino DF500.
The Imperial Thickness Gauge is CNC machined from Delrin material and designed to center on 1//2", 5/8", 3/4", 7/8", 1", and 1-1/8" nominal ply thicknesses.
We currently offer two products to create the proper fence offset for mortising imperial sized lumber. If you primarily work in only 1/2 and 3/4" material, The Domiplate is probably the better choice because it is a reliable way to set a specific offset and create many mortises with absolutely no possibility of "Fence drift". On the other hand, If you frequently use material other than 1/2" and 3/4", the new thickness gauge allows you more versatility in choosing different fence offsets, but it doesn't provide that extra "insurance" against fence drift that the Domiplate would.
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Previously our Parallel Guide System included two "Narrow Stock Adapters" that had to be adjusted from the bottom side of the Incra T-Track.
Recently we made a change to this system so now the Narrow Stock Adapters interlock with the Rail Stops and can be adjusted from the top side of the Incra T-Track using the same locking knob that holds the Rail Stop in place.
The Narrow Stock Adapters extend under the Festool Guide Rail to provide a stop for cutting narrow material. They interlock with the Rail Stops in two different positions for two different offsets: one creates a 10" offset and the other a 200mm offset. This way if you have set your Incra scales to direct-read, whether you use imperial or metric scales, all it takes is a little easy math to make the shot stock adapters direct read without having to measure from the bottom.
For example, if you use imperial Incra scales install the Narrow Stock Adapters using the 10" position. Then to make a 3" cut, position the Rail Stops so they align with the 13" reading on your Incra scale.
The improved Parallel Guide system is now available in our store.
We are now offering three configurations:
-The complete set (Rail Bracket Adapters, Rail Stops, and Narrow Stock Adapters)
-A set of Guide Rail Brackets and Rail Stops for cutting large stock (Rail Bracket Adapters and Rail Stops - useful if you don't need to make narrow cuts)
-The Narrow Stock Adapters by themselves. These will work with both the new and old styles of Parallel Guide System
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The Clamp Dog is a combination bench dog and clamp mounting plate designed for the Festool MFT tables. The dog portion allows you to take advantage of the grid of holes in the MFT to make precise cuts. The clamp portion of the Clamp Dog is pre-drilled with mounting holes that allow you to attach either a Kreg Automaxx Bench Klamp, or a Bessey Auto-Adjust Toggle Clamp for quick, accurate clamping of your workpiece.
Clamp Dogs are designed with the clamp mount "tangent" to the MFT dog, rather than the center. Our design also uses hole offset dimensions similar to Qwas Products Qwas Dogs and other similar MFT dogs on the market, so they can be used interchangeably for accurate positioning.
This "tangent" design, allows the clamp to pivot around the mounting hole, rather than on top of it. This allows more usable workspace on the MFT, and also allows the clamps to be positioned at various angles for more effective clamping, while not affecting the positioning of the workpiece.
Machined from a solid block of aircraft grade aluminum and anodized black, the Seneca Woodworking Clamp Dogs will give you years of reliable service. Included with each Clamp Dog are mounting hardware for Bessey Toggle Clamps (Kreg clamps include mounting hardware) and a hand knob to secure it to the MFT table.
Clamp Dogs are available NOW in our online store... Click HERE to order!
]]>Hey Woodworkers! Today I'd like to give you a preview of a new product here at Seneca Woodworking: the RTS-500 Cutter Adapter for the Festool Domino DF700.
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The RTS-500 Cutter Adapter is a precision machined, hardened steel adapter that allows mounting any of the Festool Domino DF500 cutters to the Festool Domino XL DF700. This enables the DF700 to cut smaller mortises that previously could only be done with the DF500. Any of the standard Domino Cutter bits (4mm/5mm/6mm/7mm/8mm/10mm) will work with this adapter.
The RTS-500 Cutter Adapter is sized so that when attached to a DF500 cutter, the overall length is the same as a DF700 cutter. This maintains the accuracy of the depth gauge on the Df700 and doesn’t require any additional math to calculate depth.
The RTS-500 was created in collaboration with Rick Christopherson, creator of the DominoGuide family of Domino 500 accessories. If you have a DF500, be sure to check out the unique accessories he has to offer.
The Seneca Woodworking Domi-Shims are a set of two machined aluminum shims that attach to the fence on the Festool Domino XL DF 700. These shims come in two thicknesses that create the correct offset for centering the mortise on both 1/2" and 3/4" ply material. The shims are used by attaching the appropriate thickness shim to the Domino XL fence, and setting the fence guide stop to the 15mm position. This eliminates guesswork and can save time when adjusting the fence for 1/2" and 3/4" nominal ply. If the guide stop is set to the 10mm position, the 1/2" shim will allow the fence offset to be set within 1mm of the center line of the cutter. This allows centering on ply much narrower than the Domino XL was originally designed for.
The Domi-Shims are available today in our store.
Photos and video below. Sign up for our email list to be notified when both products are available!
When your Festool Multifunction Table MFT/3 top starts looking rough and it's time to replace the top, purchaing one from Festool is an easy option. However, we've received feedback from customers who have access to CNC routers who are interested in making their own, but need dimensioned drawing files in order to do so....
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When your Festool Multifunction Table MFT/3 top starts looking rough and it's time to replace the top, purchasing one from Festool is an easy option. However, we've received feedback from customers who have access to CNC routers who are interested in making their own, but need dimensioned drawing files in order to do so. Click below to download the drawing.
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Hey Woodworkers! I just wanted to give you a sneak preview of one of our upcoming new products, the Parallel Guide System!
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The Seneca Woodworking Parallel Guide System is a set of machined aluminum components designed to work with Incra brand T-Track Plus rails of any length.
If you need to cut narrow stock, we will also have a narrow stock accessory add-on for the Parallel Guide System.
The narrow stock accessory works great with our also soon-to-be-released MFT table adapter for Bessey Toggle Clamps.
Pricing and availability details will be announced soon. Sign up for our email list if you want to be the first to know!
-Ryan