Biscuits, dominos & dowels
Four systems, four different jobs, and a great deal of confusion between them. We compare biscuit joiners, loose-tenon machines, dowelling jigs and pocket hole systems on alignment accuracy — and on the honest question of which joints they are strong enough for.
Pocket-hole jig · Easy-Set bit · case · cheapest in Britain
The pocket-hole jig most people mean when they say Kreg — sold in five European markets and, oddly, not in America.
Best for: Repairs, shop furniture and carcase work where speed beats invisibility
3 to 12 mm (0.12 to 0.47 in) bushes · 150 dowels · 3 drills · €19
A €19 dowelling jig with 150 dowels and three drill bits in the box — and a different brand on it than the one we searched for.
Best for: Occasional dowelled carcase work and repairs, and accurate freehand drilling
≈ $63
Pocket hole jig · with bit and screws
The joint that needs no clamps and no glue-up time — and the one that shows on one face forever.
Best for: Carcases, jigs, shop furniture and anything where one face is never seen
Biscuit jointer · cheaper outside the eurozone
Makita's biscuit jointer, and the clearest case on the site of a machine costing far less in Britain than in Germany.
Best for: Panel alignment, for a buyer who checks the price in more than one country first
≈ $240
Biscuit jointer · €300–309 everywhere
A biscuit jointer priced within €9 across four European markets — and the cheapest way into machine-cut alignment joints.
Best for: Aligning panel glue-ups and carcase joints quickly and repeatably
22 mm (0.87 in) depth · 105 × 22 mm (4.13 × 0.87 in) cutter · dust bag
The professional biscuit jointer that publishes its cutting depth and ships with the cutter and a dust bag.
Best for: A professional workshop where the jointer is used weekly rather than occasionally
A size-zero biscuit is the only one that fits thin board without breaking through. The stated thickness range decides what can be joined without piercing the face.
A stop that sets to the millimeter and locks makes the hundredth mortise identical to the first. The stated number of preset positions measures exactly that gain.
A mortise full of chips falsifies the depth on the next cut. A stated extraction port and its diameter change accuracy, not just tidiness.
They align very well and resist moderately. On a joint that works — a door, a leg frame — they are insufficient.
Dowels resist better and forgive imprecision less; biscuits tolerate lateral shift and ease assembly. The choice depends on your drilling kit.
Nothing completely, but oval loose-tenon systems come close with far quicker execution. The difference shows mainly in long-term fatigue.
Yes, with a jig and several passes. It is slower than a mortiser and the result is identical once the glue has set.
Glue does almost all the work on a well-fitted joint; the solid wood of a tenon provides the mechanical strength. The two together hold, either alone much less.
A PVA for interior work, a D3 or D4 class as soon as moisture is involved. Polyurethane fills gaps better and cleans up with difficulty.
A filled glue, or a wooden shim glued into the mortise before re-cutting to size. Filling with glue alone does not hold.
A screw in chipboard loses its grip at the first disassembly, while a well-clamped glue joint exceeds the strength of the wood. Screws are there to hold while the glue sets.
The choice of joint is made on the load it has to take, not on the machine available. Biscuits align, dowels hold, the mortise and tenon resists — and a router with a jig does all of it more slowly and just as well.
There is no table here, and the reason is in the listings. The figure published most often across these 6 products is type, given by 3 of them — short of the four in five a column needs to compare rather than to display gaps. Each product page says what its own maker published.
Specifications: manufacturer sheets for woodworking machines and the matching Amazon product pages. Prices and availability: Keepa.
Most recent revision in this category: August 12, 2026.
Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.
