That’s what you get when you use pocket screws, and if you haven’t given them a chance yet, you might want to try.

The joinery process involves two parts. First, a shallow-angled hole is drilled into one board to create the “pocket”, usually by using a special jig. The workpiece is then butted against the adjoining piece and joined using special pan-head self-tapping screws. The joints take a minimal amount of time to prepare, and the results are more than strong enough for many applications.

The Gear

What do you need to get started? Well, of course, you need to start with a pocket hole jig. The jig not only guides the drill bit but also holds the workpiece in place while you drill a perfect shallow-angled hole. CMT, General, and others make excellent jigs, but you can’t say “pocket screw” without immediately thinking of Kreg Tool Company. Kreg produces a number of kits and jigs to suit any budget or shop setup, ranging from a small pocket-sized mini to more elaborate kits with built-in toggle clamps and dust collection.

A crucial component of any pocket screw kit is the step drill bit. This bit drills a square-bottomed hole for the screw head to bear against and a shank hole for the screw body to pass through.

Many of the tools you already have in your shop will also be pressed into service, such as a drill. If you are drilling a lot of pocket holes, you might consider dusting off the old corded drill since battery life won’t be an issue. A cordless drill with a clutch is ideal for screw driving and will help avoid driving the screws too far. Obviously your project boards need to be cut to proper dimension, so whatever means you use to get them there is up to you. Just as with any other type of joinery, pocket screws work best with clean, square, tearout-free project parts.

The screws themselves are of the pan head self-tapping variety. They come in various lengths for different-sized parts as well as coarse and fine threads for different materials. Generally-speaking, I use fine threads for hardwoods and coarse threads for softwoods, plywood, and composites.

The Process

First, your parts should be cut to proper length and width. This brings up an important benefit to the pocket screw system: you don’t have to account for joinery. No more mental gymnastics when trying to calculate tenon lengths! When you’re ready to join your pieces, simply mount the workpiece onto the jig and drill the holes.

When you set up to drive the screw into place, its a good idea to use one of the manufacturer’s face clamps. These specialized clamps work very much like vise grips, but the wide faces help keep the surfaces flush as you drive the screws home. Many times, I will employ an additional clamp (F-style or parallel) across the joint just to help ensure everything is held as tightly as possible.

Once the screws are set, you can remove the clamps and move on to the next step, even if glue is involved. This may sound like a minor point, but when you think about the complexity of some projects, this can help keep you sane and negate the need for a wall full of clamps. Furthermore, you’ll save yourself a great deal of time! Take a face frame for example. If you cut classic joinery on the frame members and then glue them together, you’ll lose at least an hour just waiting for the glue to dry. Then, of course, you have to glue that face frame to the casework. That’s another hour. With the pocket screws, you can go from step to step without missing a beat.

While at first it may seem like “shortcut joinery”, pocket screws are quickly becoming the norm in many commercial shops. If you look hard enough on many high end custom cabinet jobs, you’ll probably see evidence of pocket screw construction.

When To Use Them

Without a doubt, pocket screws shine when it comes to cabinetry! As I mentioned, I use these screws exclusively when working with face frames. There’s nothing easier for the task, and it saves a great deal of time. I use them not only to join together the solid wood face frames, but also to attach solid wood reinforcing edging for plywood shelves and the plywood boxes as well. Pocket screws also work very well for attaching table tops, flat mitred items like picture frames, legs on occasional tables, and repairing broken pieces of furniture. Many folks use them as an exclusive joinery system for all types of projects.

When Not To Use Them

Let’s face it: the pocket hole itself stands out like a sore thumb! When designing a project, take your time to lay out the joints where the hole will be in an inconspicuous area. Putting them toward the inside or back of a project is always a good idea. If you can’t hide the hole, manufacturers also make special plugs that you can insert into the hole and sand or plane flush. They are made out of many common wood species and you can find one to match or you can use a contrasting species to make a statement.

Remember also that the screw and wood are dissimilar materials. While they hold well for static loads, when you use them in projects that deal with a lot of shifting loads and racking forces, specifically chairs, you definitely want to lean toward more traditional, beefier joinery methods.

Pocket screw joinery is fast and strong. While I don’t use them on every project that leaves my shop, I do find them incredibly useful and my Kreg Jig was a solid investment.

Examples

Here are some great examples of projects made using pocket screws from the Wood Whisperer community! From left to right: Dyami Plotke, Mike D’Alfonso, Dean Jackson, and Roger Turnbough.

Have experience with pocket screws? Share your story (good or bad) with us in the comments!

This article was written by Tom Iovino, Managing Editor of TomsWorkBench.com and columnist for Wood Magazine. Editing and photos by Marc Spagnuolo.

I’m just getting started in woodworking. I don’t have many tools, and the ones I do have are Ryobi (fairly cheap) but I like them. Anyway, I saw a video on youtube of this very nice oak chest, but the craftsman used mostly biscuits to join almost everything, I wouldn’t think that biscuits would be strong enough to last a lifetime. Am I wrong? If I wanted to join two boards together, would a tongue and groove be more solid in the long run? What do you think?

And my response:

Hi David. I would agree with your gut on this one. Biscuits don’t really have much to offer in the way of strength. Here’s why:

• Biscuits slots can be a little tight or a little loose, depending on your machine and how steady your hand is.
• The biscuit doesn’t penetrate very far into the joining workpieces: a #20 biscuit will penetrate less than 1/2″.
• The grain of the biscuits runs on a 45 degree angle. Ideally, the grain would run perpendicular to the joint.

Despite their shortcomings, biscuits are still very handy for alignment, especially when doing big tabletop glueups. And I honestly don’t think they are a bad option for light-duty pieces either. But in most cases where biscuits are being used, its the glue that’s doing all the holding. Lets look at the two most common areas where you could use a biscuit, with respect to the grain direction of the adjoining pieces.

First, there’s long-grain to long-grain (a tabletop glueup is a good example of this). Some folks (including me) may use biscuits for alignment or “reinforcement”, but the truth is they do very little to strengthen the joint. In this long-grain situation, its really the glue that’s doing all the work. As you have heard me and others say many times, the glue joint is stronger than the wood itself. So adding a series of shallow biscuits isn’t really going to make the joint much stronger. But if they help you align the boards, I see no harm in using them.

Now the second situation is end-grain to long-grain. Think of a rail meeting a stile or an apron joining a table leg. Whenever end-grain is involved, the joint will be inherently weak using glue alone. So we absolutely need some form of reinforcement. Traditionally, this is the territory of the King of Woodworking Joints: the mortise and tenon. The real magic of the mortise and tenon joint is that it takes this end grain to long-grain union and converts it to long-grain to long-grain, simply by inserting one piece into the other. As a result, the joint has a great deal of glue surface and strength. Make no mistake about it: the biscuit joint is no substitute for the mortise and tenon, or its little brother, Prince Tongue and Groove! All three of the biscuits weaknesses listed above are the reasons for this.

So in case you couldn’t already tell, I would never use biscuits as a primary form of joinery, especially when there are end-grain to long-grain joints involved. But I do suppose for light-duty pieces, they would be acceptable. If the maker of that oak chest used biscuits in a bunch of long-grain joints, it would probably be a reasonably sturdy piece. But if the biscuits were used for end-grain joinery, I wouldn’t recommend moving that chest around too much. If I were you, I would definitely opt for tongue and groove or mortise and tenon joints. Good luck!

Oddly enough, as I wrote this, I noticed Tom Iovino from Tom’s Workbench put up a similary-themed blog post in the community. Check it out!

This is an excerpt from the live Demo Night that took place 7/23/08. The topic was creating Greene & Greene style joint for the Gadget Station project. Its a long video, but lots of details were covered and numerous questions were thrown out by the chat room. This was our best turnout yet with 180+ viewers! This isn’t exactly as fun as the live experience but its a close second for those who couldn’t make it. Enjoy!

And here was my reply:
“Hi Chris. First off, let me compliment you on your design and craftsmanship. What a beautiful piece. No matter what the underlying joinery is, that is a fantastic design with great execution. Now, concerning pocket hole screws. Remember, joinery can be just as much about taste and opinion as it is about strength and utility. If you are happy with the final product and you enjoy using pocket screws, all the power to you! Screw away my friend!”

“Now for my opinion. I have used pocket screws in the past when I could get away with it. The only time I really use them is if they will never be seen. And even then, they are usually the last option I think of. Perhaps its a bit elitist, but I do feel that pocket screws “cheapen” a piece. I would certainly expect Kreg to defend its product and their strength claim may be valid (Im not convinced). But is strength really the only concern to us as woodworkers? If that’s the case, we might want to start using metal to build furniture instead of wood. :) Cant get much stronger than that!”

“Seriously though, I take pride in the fact that my best work contains little to no metal. But that’s just me. We all have to decide for ourselves where to draw the line. Some folks cant imagine using power tools on their projects. They take pride in the fact that their work is crafted the old-fashioned way. Some folks just want to get ‘er done!”

“Just remember that we all woodwork for different reasons. Heck, some of us do it just so we can collect tools. And still others do it simply because its such a sharp contrast to what we do at the office all day behind our computer screens in the confines of our cubicles. Whatever your reason is, keep it fun. If pocket screws make it fun for you, then keep using them. Your work certainly is not suffering for it. Good luck.”

Do you have any opinions on the use of glue-joint bits for the use of making thick table tops? I am talking about gluing boards at least 1-1/8 inch thick for a project i am working on. I hate biscuits and want the extra strength that glue-joints offer. Other than self-aligning properties. Is it really needed?

And here was my reply:
Hey Alexander. The short answer is no. The long grain glue bond in a tabletop glue-up is stronger than the wood itself. So if its going to break, it should not break along the joint. Now biscuits do help with alignment but don’t add much in the way of strength. A glue-line bit will also help in alignment, but some people believe it actually decreases the strength of the joint. So if you don’t have alignment issues, all you really need is glue and clamps. If you do have alignment issues, I recommend a set of cauls or just a biscuit every 8-10 inches. Good luck!

*Note*- For those of you who aren’t familiar with glue-line bits, check out this article on NewWoodworker.com. Also, be sure to read the comments section of this post for further clarification on the weakened glue-line issue.

In this episode, I review some basic methods for creating tenons, including using a dado blade and a tenoning jig. I also demonstrate the use of the new Festool Domino as a fast and easy way to create loose/floating tenons. For more information on the domino, visit Festool or download this handy brochure.

With so many joints in woodworking, its sometimes difficult to know where to begin. But there is one joint that stands out in my mind as the first joint every woodworker should learn: the mortise and tenon. This is the joint that separates our work from Walmart’s. Are there faster ways to get the job done? Sure. But as woodworkers, with a focus on FINE woodworking, its our obligation to seek out the highest level of quality possible and to go beyond the “get ‘er done” mind set. So with that in mind, check out Part 1 of the mortise and tenon episode where I discuss and demonstrate two common ways to cut a mortise.