The Basics of Biscuit Joinery, How to use them, & Their Advantages Over Other Methods.

Biscuit joints are the easiest mode of true joinery and a good place for novice woodworkers to get started with the basics. So, you are probably thinking, just what is a biscuit joint? how do I use this technique and what sort of applications is it suited to? Well read on my fellow wood lovers, and all will be explained!

What does a Biscuit look like?

A biscuit is a thin, roundish piece of compressed wood - normally birch. They are exceptionally strong because they're made with a diagonal grain pattern, this means that they are strong along the length and the width. Biscuits are also made to be porous and generally come in three sizes

How Do Biscuits Work?

Biscuits are used to join two pieces of wood that are to be joined they act in a very much simular fasion to the dowels in a dowel joint. But a biscuit joint involves cutting holes in your connecting edges that are more like grooves, one half of the disk shaped buscuit goes in each half of the joining pieces. Once glue has been added, the biscuit absorbs the water in the glue and expands, making your joints totally rigid and very strong.

What Are The Best uses For a Biscuit Joint?

There are many joiners who use biscuit joints whenever tangible. Professionals and hobbyists carpenters generally just use them mainly when joining panels, corners, mitres, and cabinet building. If you are a novice joiner and just learning the skills then try to pick something fairly basic for your first biscuit joining attempt. Maybe even try joining two scraps of wood edge to edge to get your eye in focus before trying the technique on a real project, after all biscuits and glue are pretty cheap.

Why should you use the Biscuit Joint?

Many woodworkers love biscuit joints due to the fact that they are so much faster than other techniques for joining wood. additionally, it's one of the strongest joining methods for novice carpenters looking to go past merely standard butt joints, or who are fed up with glued joints failing on projects.

What Tools and other items will I need?

Biscuit joinery means you will have to purchase biscuits and either a biscuit joiner or a biscuit joining bit for your router. Genrally buying a purpose made biscuit joiner will give better results and you wont have the hastle of having to set up your router for this task each time which can be quite awkward. You will also need a healthy amount of wood glue to secure your biscuits, make sure you buy a waterbased adhesive as otherwise the biscuits will not have any moisture to soak up and consequently will not swell to secure the joints to their maximum potential strength.