Just saw a guy use a carving chisel to fix a bad domino joint at the NC woodworking show

Was at the AWFS show in Charlotte last weekend. Dude from a custom shop in Asheville blew my mind. He just tapped out the loose tenon, reshaped it with a fishtail chisel. No glue. No new domino. Took him 30 seconds. I've been scrapping parts over this. Anyone else skip the domino jig and just carve when things go wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

gibson.sarah1mo ago

Hold on, a fishtail chisel is a carving tool with a curved edge, so it'd be weird for reshaping a straight domino tenon. Wouldn't a regular bench chisel or a rasp be more practical for that kind of fix? Just seems like it'd leave a wavy surface that wouldn't fit tight.

benclark1mo ago

Tbh, I had the same thought until I actually tried it on a worn tenon that had a little wiggle room. A fishtail let me undercut the shoulder just enough to get a tighter fit with a bit of glue, but you're right, for a straight fix a bench chisel is way less hassle.

oscar7431mo ago

Stop overthinking the fishtail thing. It's not about the specific tool, it's about the mindset. Dude saw a problem, grabbed the closest thing that worked, and fixed it in 30 seconds. That's the real skill. Most folks freeze up when things go wrong because they're stuck in the "right way" mode. They think they need a special jig or a specific bit to fix their mistake. But that guy just adapted on the fly. It's like when your car gets a weird rattle and everyone says take it to a pro, but sometimes just jamming a piece of cardboard in the right spot does the job for a month. We're all too afraid of being "wrong" or having a "hack" fix. The truth is, almost every shop I've seen at shows has some weird bodge job holding something together. The guys who build amazing stuff are the ones who know when to break the rules and just make it work.