Wooden dominoes or plastic dominoes? Small or bigger ones?

04/02/2021

Should you choose plastic or wooden domino blocks?

Wooden domino blocks have the advantage that they are generally slightly cheaper. Still, wood is not the most suitable material for domino constructions, because it is too light. For stable constructions, the blocks require a certain weight. On the one hand, this applies to simple line constructions: during construction you have less chance that the blocks accidentally fall over too quickly. But especially if you are building vertical domino constructions, stability is even more important. The weight is also necessary for the structures to fall down nicely. With wooden domino blocks you quickly hit the limits.

It is therefore recommended for both beginners and advanced/professional domino builders to use full, plastic dominoes. The dominoes by Don Domino are made of the ideal type of plastic to make all the domino constructions you can imagine.

Should you choose large, full dominoes or smaller concave dominoes?

Commercial brands such as Domino Express or Domino Rally produce small dominoes (16mm x 35mm x 6mm) with a very low weight (1.6 grams). So they have the same problem as wooden dominoes: they are very light weight, which makes them unstable, risking accidental fall overs during construction, or abruptly stopping halfway through a line because they do not have enough pushing power.

They also have another drawback: they have no flat surface - they are concave on the inside, and only the edges are upright. That makes them only suitable for making flat constructions. Many techniques for building vertically won't work, because it requires a completely smooth surface on all sides.

Dominoes by Don Domino have the dimensions (24mm x 48mm x 7.5mm) and weight (8 grams) used by domino teams around the world to build the most diverse chain reactions. World record attempts, such as those of Domino Day, are also performed exclusively with dominoes of this size.