Fitting a face frame with the new Lamello Zeta
I’ve been testing Lamello’s new Zeta ‘biscuit jointer’ in our kitchen at home, to fit a face frame to some cabinets and to assemble a worksurface around a drop-in sink. The Zeta produces half-moon grooves like a normal biscuit jointer, except that they are wider and remarkably have a T-section. The two part plastic biscuit incorporates a metal cam-action arm that pulls the two halves together. There are some details in the current issue of British Woodworking, but a thorough test in the next.
This is ideal for kitchen producers who want to fix a face frame to the front of pre-fabricated cabinets either on site or in the workshop. The beauty of the machine is that it can be used for serious manufacturing processes in a workshop for greater efficiency, for quicker construction on site, and for bodging.
Using the Zeta to assemble a softwood worksurface around a sink, without removing the taps
It was for a spot of bodging that I used the Zeta for assembling a trial worksurface around a steel drop-in sink unit. I did not want to remove the existing taps (considering it was the day before Christmas and my plumbing skills are negligible), so I decided to fit one piece of softwood behind the sink (with a cutout for the taps), and two much wider pieces either side, with a narrow joining piece at the front. I could have used threaded worksurface joiners, but they provide no locating register, and the Zeta was quick and produced much more pressure than I expected. If I’d wanted to use glue it would have produced a seamless join.
Click here to learn more about the Lamello Zeta
I can see the advantages of this tool, where most other methods (biscuits or dominoes) used to attack a face frame would require some form of clamping. Another popular method (which avoids the need for cramps) is to use screws and plugs but still, I can imagine that’s more time consuming than using the Zeta method – you’ve still got to clean up the wooden plugs used to hide the fixing.
Only concern may be the price – but then, a lot of pros have spent almost as much on a Festool Domino with all the extras, without even giving it a second’s thought! It’s got to be financially out of reach for one-off hobbiest use, though.
Olly.
Having used the Domino and Zeta alongside one another recently, I think for most woodworkers the former would be much more useful. You’d have to be doing a lot of face frame work (or something similar) to justify the cost of the Zeta, but if I was working on site again (which I did in the 1980s, without a workshop) I’d almost certainly buy both. They would have transformed the way I was able to make face frames and panels for kitchens and built-in cupboards and wardrobes.
The trouble with screws and plugs is that the plugs are always visible, however hard you try. Alan Peters advocated making a feature of plugs and through tenons and the like, as Jeremy Broun has often commented. Even once painted plugs tend to show through, and undermine the integrity of the surface. The Zeta would solve that, and would also act as a biscuit jointer. The Domino would be ideal for mortise and tenoning doors and frames, and could also be used as a biscuit jointer for panels. I’d probably buy that first, and then the Zeta, from the profits of the Domino!
With a workshop I might be able to do without the Domino, replacing the mortise and tenons with dowels or routed joints for frames and doors.