Biscuit Joiner: Gauge if a Biscuit will Work

Biscuit joinery offers a great way to form a solid joint with consistent alignment, but with material being all kinds of widths and thicknesses, and there being a variety of biscuit sizes to choose from, how can you be confident that A) your work piece has sufficient capacity to locate a biscuit slot without blowing out the side, and B) if a biscuit slot will fit, which biscuit size will work best?

After you make decisions on which biscuit size to use, your next decision will be where to place the biscuit. In miter applications, you will need to pay particular attention to the fence height that you use, because placing the biscuit slot in the wrong spot can cause you to cut through the show face of your work piece. That’s not only a wasteful situation, but can also be a dangerous one.

Fortunately, George has been an avid biscuit joinery proponent for years, and designed a couple simple jigs to handle these situations:

Biscuit sizing jig: This simple jig will give you what you need to make quick decisions about which biscuit will work best for a given work piece. No more having to make test cuts in scrap, requiring you to make multiple adjustments on your biscuit joiner until you have arrived at the correct biscuit size.

Biscuit miter location jig: This tip will give you a technique to quickly and accurate mark a location for a biscuit to be placed inside of a miter joint. Similar to the first jig, this will aid in shop efficiency as well as safety. This simple approach will enable you to locate a biscuit within a miter in seconds.

If you are interested in learning more about biscuit joinery, check out this primer video that covers all of the basics on biscuit joinery.