Kreg Jig 310: The Ultimate DIY Tool for Beginners!

hello and welcome into shop fix a community joined together for the love of woodworking in

this episode i want to show you the kreg jig 310 series and i was quite surprised with this model i

think it's actually much more versatile in a wood shop than i imagined in the first place and it's

great for home repairs as well so i'm going to cover everything you need to know about the kreg

jig 310 system in this video let's get right into this shop fix it's for the love of woodworking

all right so let's check out the supplies you get with the 310 system so right off the bat

you get a classic kreg jig pocket hole guide right here and on the outside it's got the nice plastic

just like the larger models and this plastic is really sturdy and it actually holds up really well

considering the wear and tear a craig jig may get there is a model that has two of

these pocket hole jigs and that way you can get two side by side however the very budget

friendly model comes with a single pocket hole jig just like this it comes with the classic

pocket hole drill bit and then the stock collar it comes with the square tipped drill bit

and this is what you use to screw in all the screws that you use with the krig jig

and then it comes with this handy little measuring device here and it actually measures the thickness

of the lumber for you and so that's kind of handy if you're on the go you can just measure the

thickness of the lumber with the little tool here and then you just simply adjust the stop collar

to the measurement that you measured on this tool so that's pretty handy that it comes with that so

this is a very simplified version of the kreg jig system you might be asking yourself well maybe

the larger jig would be better instead of buying such a budget friendly model maybe it'll do more

and it can do more however it can't replace what this kreg jig model can the 310 and that

is to basically repair furniture that's already been assembled if you're looking for a budget

friendly model to get really nice pocket hole joinery well you can't go wrong with this because

it essentially does the same thing as some of the other more expensive kreg jig models does however

this definitely takes more do-it-yourselfness because you're going to have to line up the jig

itself you're going to have to make sure that you clamp it on right and if you need more than one

pocket hole you're going to have to measure that out and then place that on two different spots

okay so let's utilize the kreb jig 310 system now to join some boards and we're going to be

joining these two boards just like that and so the first thing we're going to need to do

is take our measuring tool that's provided in the kit and we're going to place that on the side of

the board to measure the thickness and i'm getting the measurement in between the one and a half mark

so we're going to be using the one and a half mark on the stop collar and the stock collar

it'll come like that and then you simply slide it on the drill bit and then you

take the measuring tool which is also an allen key and then you're going to be tightening it

and there's markings on the drill bit itself and so we have one and a half inches

for our marking and so we find that marking on the drill bit now once we have the stop collar

tightened onto the drill bit then we're going to want to chuck this drill bit in a drill so i have

this cordless drill here and i'm going to chuck it inside just like that tighten it real good and

nope make sure it's chucked straight that was

chucked a little bit lopsided you always want to check that before you drill something out

you're going to have to get it spinning and then make sure it's spinning on point there we go okay

now we have to make one adjustment on the actual jig itself and that's this gray tab you can see

there's a lever here and if you push the lever down it enables you to move the gray mechanism

okay and that's gonna be stopped at the board thickness so you look on the other side and

there's three different measurements a half inch three fourths and one and a half inch i have it

set at one and a half inches because that's the board thickness if your board was a half inch you

simply have to push down on the mechanism push it up until the little hexagon plastic piece

of the gray part goes into that hole of a half inch so it's pretty easy to utilize i'll go to

one and a half inches make sure that's secured in and then when we put on the crib jig itself

if we're trying to make the pocket holes over here then we flip it around like that and put it right

here now we're going to have to drill two holes out into this board to make a proper joint so

i'm going to first put mine towards the right side and then i'm going to move it to the other side so

we'll start it here now before we do any drilling we're going to be clamping this board down

so we'll take our clamp we'll clamp it down to our work surface make sure that's good and clamped now

we'll take the jig itself and i'm going to put it on there and then we need to clamp the jig as well

now craig jig the company makes their own clamp and it looks pretty intuitive i have

never owned that clamp i have always utilized f-style clamps and i think f-style clamps work

fine you can probably just use the clamps in your own shop for this the kreg jig clamp

may be really awesome however i've never seen the need to buy one and so that's just something to

keep in mind i've always found the clamps that i have around my shop are sufficient enough so we're

going to clamp this on here okay so now we'll take our drill and we're going to be feeding it through

the metal part of the jig and i recommend starting the drill once you have

the drill bit set at the proper angle in the jig and then start it so here we go

okay and that's all there is to it i drilled until my stop caller reached

the end of the pocket hole jig and that's when i knew it was time to back it out

okay so now that we have these pocket holes drill out properly in this piece of wood we can go ahead

and join them together and we're going to be joining them together with craig jig screws

and for a one and a half inch range you're going to be using two and a half inch kreg jig screws

and they do sell value packs like i have here it's 250 and so we're going to grab two of those

for joining these boards and before we join them we're going to definitely need to plant

these boards down so they don't move out of place while we're screwing them in

okay and i'm just going to tighten that down there it looks aligned both boards are flush against the

work surface and now we're going to be chucking in the square tipped drill bit and i highly recommend

chucking this into a drill and using a just a regular drill to drive in the kreg jig screw

and that's because once that hits the end of the pocket hole you'll feel it if you have an impact

driver what will end up happening is it'll start doing the impacts and then once you get to the end

of the pocket hole you won't be able to tell the difference and then you'll drive it too far and

you'll ruin it i've ruined some just by drilling it way too far because i didn't know i reached the

end of the pocket hole and so that's why i highly recommend just taking your square tipped bit

that comes with the kit using the screws that craig jig makes and then simply drive it in

okay so now we have our two boards joined together with our kreg jig 310 series and so let's just say

that this joint becomes weakened over time and let's say it's part of a larger piece of furniture

and we don't want to disassemble it all just to make new pocket holes and so what we can do is we

can leave it just like this however it is and we can take our kreg jig 310 and what we're going to

do is we're going to first measure exactly how far it needs to be by using the gray stop block there

and put it on the side of the board where it would reach if this board wasn't already

there we're going to mark that on our board the end of the pocket hole jig

now we can remove this measurement guide from the kreg jig we're going to leave that to the side

we're going to take the actual kreg jig part and we're going to match up the end of the pocket hole

to the line we just made and so basically it's the same process as before

from here we're going to go ahead and take our clamp and clamp it on there

okay and then we can unclamp it

and you can see that the pocket hole is essentially in the same exact position as the

other pocket holes but we got that accomplished with this board being in the way and so that's how

you can repair furniture while all the boards are assembled and you need to just put this kreg jig

in the middle of the board somewhere and so you can definitely get that done

and now obviously to finish it off we're just going to drive a quick jig screw right in

we go so for whatever reason if one of the kreg jig joints maybe just

loosens over time or the pocket hole is damaged for some reason you can always strengthen it back

up just like that well i hope i covered all the things that you needed to know on how to use the

kreg jig 310 series and how to use a grip jig to create pocket hole joinery if you enjoyed this

video don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe to the shopfix channel if you

haven't already well i wish you the best of luck with your future woodworking projects take care