Woodworking Basics
(Page 4 of 5)
June/July 2007
Story and Photos by Steve Maxwell
POCKET SCREWS
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Imagine a wood screw driven at a shallow angle across the back face of a butt joint, connecting the two pieces of wood. This is what pocket screws are all about. You predrill holes for the screws in one part using a special jig, bring the parts together, then drive the pocket screws home. The joint is instant, surprisingly strong (though not quite as strong as a biscuit joint) and requires no clamps. The screws themselves draw the parts together tight.
Kreg Tool Company made pocket screws popular, and no one disputes that they make the best jigs for drilling pocket holes. You can get their simplest jig for about $50. For three times that, you get a model that can handle anything you’ll encounter building furniture. There are even professional pocket hole jigs for trim carpenters.
So exactly where do pocket joints make sense? If you’re building a floor cabinet, a bookcase, a set of kitchen cabinets or a run of frame-and-panel wainscoting, your design will probably include face frames to define rectangular openings. Assembling them is the perfect application for pocket screws. Dowels and biscuits work fine, too, but they both take considerably more set-up, clamping and assembly time. There’s also the challenge of aligning the mating halves of biscuit holes or dowel slots that span both parts of a joint — if you blow this detail, your parts won’t line up. There’s no such hazard with pocket screws. They’re first-rate for building wainscoting, fireplace mantels and other architectural details where one face of the wood is permanently hidden.
Since pocket holes are drilled on one side of the joint only, evening up mating pieces of wood before assembly isn’t restricted in any way. Just bring the parts together, align them perfectly with your fingertips, clamp them down to your workbench together to immobilize them, and drive the screws home. Release the clamp; that’s it — instant joint assembly, without waiting for glue to dry. In fact, you don’t need glue at all, though you can go ahead and put it on if it makes you feel better.
Is there a catch? Yes. The angled holes, an unavoidable part of pocket-screw joinery, are pretty ugly. You can buy angled dowels made especially to plug these holes, but the results still don’t look as clean and classic as biscuit or dowel joints, which leave no trace. This is why I restrict my use of pocket-hole joints to areas that won’t be seen after assembly.
I love traditional woodworking techniques and their long history. But innovations deserve praise, too. Using dowels, biscuits and pocket screws, you can produce excellent, durable and beautiful woodwork in a fraction of the time and cost that the old favorite techniques require. With a little wood and a few ideas, you’re ready to make good things happen on your homestead.
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