These are joinery biscuits for woodworking and I made a bunch from a piece of scrap wood.
Whenever you make something that you utilized to buy, it resembles generating income.
Requires a 4" hole saw and I just occur to have one. Took approximately 30 minutes to make nearly 50, but half of that time was developing the simple component on my drillpress.
These are made from ash and the grain goes straight perpendicular to the joint for optimal strength. Shop bought biscuits have the grain running on an angle. These are also a little larger and fill the mortise more precisely.
Obviously you can make any size biscuit with the very same hole saw and it would be a great idea to build a more refined fixture than the rough and prepared one I slapped together in this video.
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These are joinery biscuits for woodworking and I made a bunch from a piece of scrap wood.
Whenever you make something that you used to buy, it’s like making money.
Requires a 4″ hole saw and I just happen to have one. Took roughly 30 minutes to make nearly 50, but half of that time was building the simple fixture on my drillpress.
These are made from ash and the grain goes directly perpendicular to the joint for maximum strength. Store bought biscuits have the grain running on an angle. These are also slightly bigger and fill the mortise more precisely.
Of course you can make any size biscuit with the same hole saw and it would be a good idea to build a more refined fixture than the rough and ready one I slapped together in this video.
John I’ve been following you for a very long time but lost track of you , then I found you making your own BAND SAW? GEEEZZZZ dude you are a Smart White dude hahaha…. Glad to have run into you again. Peace Brother!
Like Saïan I bought the biscuits in two large packets of 1000 pieces (size 10 and 20), so it will take some time to run out of it. But like dowels they are made of beech, which is not resistant enough for outdoor furniture, so this can be a good reason to make your own biscuits from oak or other wood. The grain is running in an angle for some intent I unfortunately don’t know, but I think there is another build in trick: the biscuits are pressed or dried, so they easily slip into the slots, but with the moisture of the glue they are going to become thicker to end up in a tight connection.
Excuseme my friend 🤝🤝🤝
@JimTheSoundman 😊👍
The perpendicular grain was one of the first things that jumped out at me. Patrick Sullivan did a biscuit strength testing video last year and as I recall the angled grain on the biscuits caused joint failure. It would be interesting to see how much joint reinforcement would be provided by the perpendicular grain compared to the angled grain. Maybe you and Patrick could do a partner video on it.
You titled this wrong, its supposed to be “woodworking suppliers hate him: learn this one weird trick!” 😜
Honestly, that is a super smart one, thanks for sharing!
Haha yes plus a couple of random circles and arrows.
“You won’t believe what happens next!”
But I no longer consider click bait titles.
Isn’t it time for the “biscuits don’t really do anything” comment? Nice work John, as always I am impressed by your ingenuity!
Strength wise the don’t do us much unless your ar gluekng something that has a laminate over it but for aligning it they are very helpful wasn’t sure if you where sarcastic though
Your inventiveness never ceases. I think there’s a few folks out there that missed the point.
Always coming up with ways to demonstrate adaptability! Thanks for posting, and thumbs up.
Hello mrs 🙏🤝
You know something man? You do nice work. I know this video is about making biscuits, but the random box you were assembling at the end is really well made. You make it all seem effortless. Mad respect from Upstate New York ✌️
The *real* upstate, or where yankees see a tree for the first time? /s
I wonder if the grain going straight across the joint will provide a strength advantage over the usual diagonal orientation.
Yes I know there are reasons besides strength to use these, and in some circumstances they don’t add any. Sometimes they do.
I made about a billion of them on the CNC a few years ago, still have 1/2 billion, gonna make my own casket with the last few…..😀
Haha! Oh.
That’s funny. O-H-
Building a casket, that is quite an… _undertaking_ (I’ll show myself out)
@Mark Zambelli Matter of fact, a few years ago, I picked up a book on making caskets for all the family. Found it in the local woodstore 🙂
Won’t need any for my cremation urn.
Nice in-a-pinch solution to a problem, thanks. There are one or two prerequisites, however. You don’t just need a 4″ hole saw and a drill press, you also need a bandsaw. I got the first two but not the third. I guess I can tape together some 1/8″ plywood strips instead, however. One nice thing about making your own biscuits is that you can choose the wood you use. No such option with ready-made biscuits. I once ordered some biscuits from a US supplier and got a bag full of flimsy, easily split, lauan plywood biscuits obviously crushed rather than pressed on a worn out die cutter. They apparently used the crappiest wood they had thinking no one would notice.
Your biscuits are used as splines and, if perfectly sized, align the joints well. They are not compressed and do not expand the way the beech biscuits expand. The purchased biscuits just are not a significant cost, like worrying about the cost of glue. If you have ever put together boards, then find they are not straight, even immediately, it can be a fighting match to pull them apart. I’m just fussing; ignore me. I love making things for myself and admire your process in biscuit making.
😊👍
I came here to say both of these things… LOL
Really nice!
I use a hole saw and make my own dowel ends on blocks for bench dogs.
Quick and easy and I can make whatever height I need.
Great idea. Two questions: 1) what kind of wood is best for making biscuits, 2) are my eye blurry, or was a lot of video out of focus? I always look forward to your videos each week.
Actually, you left out one feature of store-bought biscuits. They are compressed so that they will expand in the slot once wet glue soaks into them. I don’t know if that makes much of a difference, but I suppose you could take them over to a metal bench vise and compress them there if you wanted to. You have to make them a little thicker before you do that.
All wood expands when it gets wet, no matter of its water or glue. So, if biscuits on the box say they expand when they get wet, they’re stating the obvious 😉
I’ve never been able to make homemade biscuits that taste as good as the commercial ones.
Yeah, but I don’t think this is his bread and butter either, more about getting out if a jam. If you could replicate the commercial ones, that would really be the icing on the cake.
@Alex Wills it dovetails nicely with the current joint efforts at knurled piece.
My understanding was that the biscuits were compressed wood, and the moisture in the glue makes them swell to help hold the join better. Of course we are clamping the join, so is that bit of decompression really much of a thing? Also, if they are compressed, does humidity decompress the biscuit?
Moisture in the glue will make these thin pieces of solid wood swell too. Maybe not as much, but it looks like these biscuits fit more tightly than typical store-bought biscuits so it’s probably fine.
Efficient and thrifty as always John 😉
But biscuits aren’t just to align the joint and add glue surface… They are made of compressed wood which when moistened with glue, will swell to grip the walls of the slot making a tighter physical connection. That’s why you can sometimes get biscuit joints that telegraph through the top surface if you sand across the joint too soon after glue up…
And for what its worth, a box of 100 biscuits at the Depot is like $8 – my time is worth a lot more than that for 30 minutes.
There’s an old saying, work smarter, not harder…
I think people are missing the point here and should also read comments without posting the same thing every time.
Plus I think these biscuit will be way more stronger than shop bought considering the wood species and how well they fit into the slot!
Hopefully all the comments about shop bought biscuit swelling when glued doesn’t annoy John 🤞😆
Brilliant John! This turns a biscuit into a much stronger loose tenon.
Using the large hole saws give me such a problem too. Always ripping pieces of wood from where they’re clamped or held down. I pretty much pray it goes well every time I’m about to put one to wood. Kind of glad it happens to the pros like John too. So I’m not alone in this.