Triton TDJ600 Dowelling Jointer Review

Triton TDJ600 Dowelling Jointer

I have been looking for a power dowelling jointer for a while and the choice was limited to one budget machine that I could afford and three very expensive machines, which were well outside my budget! These are the Triton TDJ600 costing under £200, the Mafell Duo Dowel Jointer at £850, Festool Domino DF700 at £1000 and the Lamello Zeta P2 for an eye watering £1300! 

I am going to be making four new lower windows for the workshop and I want to use 12mm dowels in their construction. Two of these windows face the lane so I will make these from Welsh Oak and the rear two face the veg garden, so will be made from Redwood.  

As an amateur woodworker on a small budget, the choice was simple, the Triton was the only machine that I could actually afford. I looked online and saw that Toolstation were offering the machine for just  £129.99 with next day delivery. 

The machine is supplied with 8mm cutters, but I had been using 10mm dowels and have a big box of these, so I also bought the 10mm and 12mm cutters from FFX, together with additional packs of dowels in 8 and 12mm. The total purchase price came to just under £195 which is a quarter of the cost of the cheapest alternative!

Next day this big box arrived from Toolstation

Inside the big box and wrapped in oodles of bubble wrap was the jointer

Usually, cheapest does not mean best and I had read reviews of this machine and watched various woodworkers struggling on YouTube to get it to produce accurate results. I had watched two videos that showed work arounds to improve accuracy, so I bought the machine with an open mind knowing that a certain amount of fettling could be required to produce accurate repeatable results.

The TDJ600 can use 8mm, 10mm and 12mm dowels

As it turned out, the only fettling required on my machine was to find a way to connect it to my Festool MIDI extractor. The Triton has a dust port on the bottom of the machine underneath the cutters. I tried my various dust adapters but nothing seemed to fit straight out of the box.  However, I stripped down one of my Cen-Tec adapters and this fitted both the Festool 27mm hose and the dust port on the Triton, albeit a bit loose. The addition of a strip of gaffer tape to the Triton made for a good airtight fit and that is all I have had to do in way of improvements to my machine!

A piece of gaffer tape makes an airtight seal for the Cen-Tec soft adapter

With the Festool plugged into the Triton, dust collection is impressive with hardly any wood dust ending up on the floor.

The Festool MIDI now plugs straight into the Triton

 

Various reviewers made mention of poor accuracy with the machine, but I have not found this to be the case. I have now used the machine for several projects and am very satisfied with its accuracy and its ability to produce accurate repeatable holes, that match perfectly. To test for accuracy, I performed a number of tests and some of these are shown below.

A simple jig makes lining up the holes easy

The cutters are spaced 32mm apart, so I made up a simple jig with reference lines for the cutters and centre lines, when working with long work pieces which require multiple dowels.

Eight 10mm dowels produced perfect results
 (wood is square but looks bowed due to wide angle lens!)

In this example I am using eight 10mm dowels to join a length of 45mm x 35mm to a piece of 125mm x 47mm, leaving a 5mm gap along its length. I felt that whilst it would be easy to fit a dowel at either end, but by using eight dowels, there would be a much greater margin for error and this would have a direct impact on the accuracy of the 5mm differential that I was looking for.

All the holes lined up perfectly

By using the jig to mark out the workpiece it was easy to accurately mark up prior to cutting and all the holes were evenly spaced. I cut the 10mm dowels in half with a Japanese pull saw and sanded the edges with 120grit paper and all the dowels slotted into place.

The 5mm riser is equidistant along its length

I cut the eight holes into each piece of timber with the Triton dowel jointer, using the alignment marks on the faceplate 

There are three alignment marks on the faceplate which show a midpoint between the two cutters

lined up to my pencil marks, that I had transposed from the jig. The line of holes in each piece were spot on and the two pieces of timber slotted together easily. The result as you can see in the photo above is a rise of 5mm equidistant along its length.

A good tip, when using the machine I found that by keeping my thumb pressed down on the horizontal fence this kept the machine nice and steady throughout the cut.

Pressing down on the horizontal fence with my thumb kept the machine nice and steady

In order to prevent tear out, another good tip is to let the cutters come to a halt, before releasing the plunge action. Doing this the holes have been clean and without tear out every time.

In this second example I have used the jointer to reinforce a 45 degree mitre in two lengths of 47 x 47 Redwood. I could have changed the cutters and used two 8mm dowels, but instead decided to remove one of the cutters and use a 10mm dowel instead to see how it would cope with narrower stock.

Using one 10mm dowel to reinforce the glue joint in 45 degree mitre 

I like the fact that you can if you so wish remove one of the cutters when working with a narrow workpiece. I cut the 45 degree mitres on the table saw, using the sliding mitre gauge. There is a certain amount of slop in the gauge so I was surprised that the cuts proved accurate as they did. When you consider that my table saw cost only fractionally more than a good after market mitre gauge, it does show that some cheap tools really can be quite good if you take time to set them up properly! Review on the table saw to follow.

Using the included 2.5mm allen key to remove one of the cutters

The cutters have one flat side and are easy to insert and remove using the 2.5mm allen key which is included with the jointer and is stored neatly in the carrying handle. It is simply a case of rotating the cutters until the grub screws are at 90 degrees, then just loosen the one you want a couple of turns and withdraw the cutter. You do the same, but in reverse to fit the cutter. So if you want to change sizes up or down, or as in this case remove one of the cutters, it is a simple and straightforward procedure.

The two pieces slotted together correctly and made a nice tight joint

In this third test I used the jointer with four dowels to join two pieces of 70 x 70mm treated rough sawn timber, which would form one of the corner supports for the new chicken house.

Cutting the dowel holes in the face of the timber

and in the end grain of the corresponding piece

By using the MFT table with either the Festool or Axminster F clamps holding the workpiece secure for cutting is quite straightforward. I used the the Triton with the two cutters, first in the face and then in the corresponding piece of end grain.

This was the first test that I made with the Triton jointer, so I was a bit unsure if it would line up properly, but as the photos show, there were no problems.

The four dowels lined up beautifully and produced a tight 90 degree joint. Very impressive!

The jointer is supplied in a smart soft case which is handy for keeping it clean when stored under the bench.

The machine comes with a manual which like a number of machines from China is rather vague, but most of what you need to know can be found online anyway, so no worries there. 

The controls are quite straightforward, with cutter plunge depth and fence angle adjustment on the left hand side and fence height control on the right hand side. The fence height is adjusted with one knob to release or tighten the setting and another to wind the rack and pinion lift.

Fence height adjustment control on the right side of the machine

Close up showing rack and pinion lift

Cutter plunge depth control

Plunge and Angle controls are found on the left side of the machine

The machine comes with a 12 month warranty and if you register online within 30 days as I did, this will be extended to 36 months.

The machine weighs just under 3kg so isn't tiring to use for long periods.

I can only assume that Triton took on board the various criticisms that had been levelled at this machine over the years and fixed them. For me the machine worked straight out of the box and the only fettling required was to connect my 27mm dust hose to the 30mm dust extractor port, which can be a common problem with incompatibility of dust ports between manufacturers.

In conclusion: I bought this machine with my own money and have no affiliation with Triton or Tool Station. The views expressed in this review are entirely my own and have not been influenced by a third party. That said, I am very pleased with the Triton TDJ600 Dowelling Jointer and think it is exceptionally good value for money. The test results above speak for themselves and I have not had any reason to regret my purchase, quite the opposite in fact, as this machine does exactly what I need.