Fixed louver shutters with the Festool Domino, inspired by Gary Nichols!

This idea came from, Gary's article on the Festool USA site.

Here is a closer look. The cut tenon is on the left and whole one the right.

His technique is to use the Domino at an angle with the indexing pins used to center the cutter on the stock.

I used a Japanese pull saw to cut part of a Domino tenon off to be used as a spacer.

Once the first slot is cut in the stile, place the cut Domino tenon in the first slot as a spacer. Butt the Domino's base against the tenon. This will give the louvers the right spacing.

Another look.

You should end up with something that looks like this. For this project I'm using the 6 mm cutter with the Domino's widest slot setting. The stock is 5/4 for the stiles/rails and louvers. I rolled the edges of the louvers with a 1/8" round over bit in my router table.

I found that care must be taken when aligning the domino. The process is a little slow but does work well.

Here is a short video of the mortises being cut in the stiles.

Here is a SketchUp model of the louver.

This is a shot of the first shutter, three more to make.