Top 13 Pocket Hole Tips and Tricks | ULTIMATE Guide To Become a Pro

(drilling sound)

- [Matt] So one of the most common questions I get

is how to prevent a pocket screw

from popping through on the other side

when you're joining two pieces like this.

Nobody likes to see that.

I'm gonna show you how to make sure

that never happens again to you.

Also, I'm gonna show you how to fix that

once it does happen,

plus many more pocket hole tips and tricks.

Stay tuned.

There is a very simple way to prevent that

from ever happening again to you

so that the pocket hole screw

does not break through

the other side of the board that you're joining.

Let me show you how.

So this is one by material.

This is a onebasix, and we're using the

Massca pocket hole jig to join the two boards together.

These are actually three quarters of an inch thick,

and so we've got our setting at three quarters of an inch.

You use the included depth guide to

set your pocket hole bit stop collar depth.

The easiest and simplest way to make sure

that that doesn't happen to you again

when you're drilling pocket holes, it's extremely simple,

you've got your depth stop at three-quarters of an inch.

You set your bit at three quarters of an inch,

and it's still breaking through.

Let me show you how to fix it.

Simply back off the stop collar,

raise it up about an eighth inch.

If you're not sure what an eighth inch is,

you can just rotate this depth guide around

until it says seven eighths of an inch.

Set your depth on your depth collar at seven eighths

instead of three quarters.

When you rotate this around to three quarter,

it's going to be one eighth of an inch higher,

or less deep or more shallow,

than you're actually needing to drill.

This will prevent those screws from breaking through.

This goes for all pocket hole jigs,

no matter what brand you're using.

I found this to be pretty common,

especially when you're joining

softwoods like spruce, pine, things like that

because they compress more because they're softer.

Now, if I'm joining those two together

with the settings that I created

versus the recommended settings,

no breakthrough.

If it's still breaking through the wood

and you set your stop collar just like I showed you,

I'll tell you why that is in just a minute.

If you like that first tip, stick around.

I've got a lot more coming.

I'm Matt with 731woodworks.com.

They call me the pocket hole king.

I've also got pocketholeking.com,

if you want to go check that out.

I want to teach you some things about pocket hole joinery

that may help you along your way

in your woodworking journey.

I'm here to help you.

Let's get started.

So when you drive your pocket hole screws,

you want to make sure to adjust down the pressure

or the torque that your drill,

if it has that setting,

you can turn that down so that it's not driving it as hard.

Same thing as your impact driver,

you flip that down to a one

so that it doesn't actually force the screw

through the other side of the material.

So you're making a project,

and one of your screws pops through

because you didn't have the depth set correctly,

or you overdrove the screw,

and now it's popped through your project.

And you're just, you're devastated, right?

Because now you've got a giant hole

with this screw popping through,

plus it split the wood a little bit.

So how do we fix it?

Well, the first thing you got to do

is you're going to need to back that screw out.

(drilling sound)

You want to back it till it's

beneath the surface of the wood.

Okay?

And typically on a softwood,

it has already torn through some of this stuff.

And you want to get that all that loose wood off of there

because it's going to come off when you sand it anyway.

If you're painting this, it really doesn't matter.

You can use some wood filler, sand it, paint over it.

Nobody's ever going to know

except for you and the good Lord, right?

But if you're staining it,

then you're going to want to that to blend

with knot holes and things like that.

That's where this stuff comes in.

I've got a whole video dedicated to CA glue.

Basically this is a colored super glue.

It dries extremely fast when you use

the accelerator with it.

Okay?

This stuff is so simple to use.

It dries hard as a rock.

So you're just going to take, this is brown.

I like to use brown on

if I'm staining with dark walnut, special Walnut,

that type colors.

If you're staining with a black color,

then you would use the black colored CA glue,

but you put a little dab on there.

Let it kind of soak in for just a minute.

And then you'll take your activator.

Spray that activator on there.

It's going to dry within 30 seconds,

usually within about 15 or 20 seconds.

It'll dry that CA glue up.

Then you can sand that smooth.

And it's going to look like a knothole.

And that's how you fix when those screws pop through

like that.

When you're putting together,

especially like if you're doing panels,

so we'll pretend this is a panel glue up

where you're making a tabletop or something.

And when you've used pocket holes,

if these two edges aren't perfectly square

when the pocket holes tighten up,

it's going to cause this, these two pieces of wood,

to cant a little bit like that.

And when that happens,

your tabletop is going to be all wompy jawed

because you'll have say four or five screws per a board,

and every time you tighten one down, it just gets like that.

So make sure these two edges are actually perfectly square,

either with a jointer or jointing with the table saw

like I've done before.

I'll link the video in the description below

on how to do joint with a table saw.

(drilling sound)

I used to put wood together like that.

When you don't use the proper clamps,

what happens is your two pieces of wood

are actually uneven now.

You see that lip?

So now I have to do something about that.

I either have to come in and sand that,

or I have to plane that down somehow.

So the best way to prevent that from happening

is a face clamp.

This is a Massca brand face clamp.

You can get any kind you want.

I'll put links in description below to these tools.

I didn't have one of these for a very long time.

I really didn't think they were necessary,

but I was absolutely wrong about that.

So the way these work is there's two flat pieces

of metal on each side,

and they actually will tilt to fit the

however the wood is oriented on a flat surface.

And then there's a tightening screw down here

that actually adjusts the tension

when the clamps come together.

Then there's a quick release right there

that lets you release it.

When you put this face clamp on like that,

I've got it close to that screw.

This is perfectly flush now

because these two pieces of wood

are exactly the same thickness.

So this is going to keep that nice and flush.

And it's not going to let it get off balance

or out of alignment because you've got this clamp on there.

What I like to do is

if you can get a face clamp on it,

if it's in a place where you can,

is to put it right where the screws are going to go in.

Even if you've got two side by side,

I'll clamp that side, and then I'll move clamp over.

Now you can see that that joint is almost perfectly flush.

I mean, it's not exactly perfect,

but it is much, much closer.

Right down here is perfectly flush.

There is a very, very tiny lip that you could hit

with a 120 grit sandpaper.

A couple of passes and that would be flush.

The bottom side is flush as well.

So those face clamps are worth every penny.

And they're only about, I don't know, 15 or $20,

so I highly recommend getting a couple.

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Another thing to keep in mind is

if you're building your project is going to be outdoors,

make sure you use outdoor rated screws

versus interior screws.

And the way you tell those apart

is a lot of times these interior screws

are just going to be silver.

They're like zinc coated or something like that.

And these outdoor screws actually have like a,

almost a plastic looking coating on there.

And they're they're blue.

I don't know exactly what they're coated with,

but they feel like a plastic coating.

And that keeps them things from rusting.

When you've got a project

like our recent outdoor sectional build,

you want to make sure you're using outdoor screws on that

'cause the last thing you want to happen is

you've made this awesome project,

and in a year or two down the road,

those screws start rusting and breaking on you.

You don't want that to happen.

Use those outdoor screws for outdoor projects.

They're about the same price as an interior screw.

You just need to decide which one you're going to need.

When you get ready to put some pocket holes

in some of this beautiful purple heart,

ooh.

If you're drilling into hardwoods like

oak, purple heart, cherry, maple,

anything like that, you're using hardwoods,

you want to make sure that you're picking the right screw.

So here you see we have a piece of purple heart,

which is a very hard wood.

We got a piece of spruce, which is very soft like pine.

On the soft woods like pine and spruce,

you're going to be using those coarse thread screws.

And on hardwood, you'll be using these more fine thread.

You really see the difference

with them sitting side by side,

the differences in the fine versus the course threads.

The fine threads are made with that self-tapping tip,

so that it will help actually not split your hardwoods.

So you make sure you use those fine threads for hardwood.

Another good thing to remember is

if you're using plywood,

say three quarter inch or half inch plywood,

for to build a project,

whether it be cabinets

or whatever you're making out of the plywood,

and you need to pocket hole, join those things together,

make sure you measure your plywood

because three-quarter inch plywood

is rarely ever three-quarters of an inch actual.

So if you're going to be setting your pocket hole jig

at three three-quarters of an inch,

you set your bit depth at three quarters of an inch,

it's going to drill too deep.

The actual thickness of the plywood,

and even in this case here with it, I've got this piece,

it's about a full 16th inch shy

of three-quarters of an inch.

Well, you want to make sure you set the depth correct

on your pocket hole jig and your bit.

One thing that I actually waited a very long time to buy

is this, I think it's called a 90 degree clamp,

but I typically just call it a thingaMaJig clamp.

This one is made from Kreg.

It's a really good clamp.

It has that same flat metal piece that will adjust

a little bit to however it's oriented on the board,

and it's got a three eighths inch metal dial

actually made into it.

And you're just going to clamp that into that pocket hole.

So if you've got two pocket holes or a long panel,

you can actually take this and help hold it in place.

This thing is fantastic.

I should have gotten one of these

a very, very long time ago.

Now, a little more expensive than your face clamp.

This one I think is like $30 or so.

I'll put a link in the description below

to the thingaMaJig clamp.

But these work awesome if you're trying to join two pieces

at a 90 degree angle,

which you do a lot in pocket hole joinery.

Now, once you have that screw in there,

that screw is going to act like a clamp,

and you can just move this one off

and put a screw in that hole.

And you're done.

Another neat little trick you can do with a pocket hole bit

is you can loosen this stop collar off,

slide it down onto your bit.

We'll set this to about halfway

of the thickness of the lumber.

So you just set that stop collar,

to where the shoulder of this bit, not the blown point,

but this shoulder right here is about halfway

of the thickness of your stock, or your piece of wood,

and then you'll just tighten down that stop collar.

Make sure that it's actually on the flat part

of your drill bit,

and it doesn't go down into the groove

just because it wouldn't tighten up right.

So now you can use this to countersink a screw.

I'm joining these two without pocket,

If I'm not using a pocket hole for whatever reason,

I want to join these together,

all you gotta do now is you've already got that

three-eighths inch hole for the countersink.

You can just take a wood dowel,

like this is a three inch dowel,

put a little wood glue on it.

You will hear when it bottoms out.

You just take a flush trim saw at that point,

trim that dowel off.

You can sand it flat, and it'll give you a good little.

(sanding noise)

Now you can see that dowel is right there.

You sanded it flush,

and that gives you a nice, a different option for joinery.

If you don't want those pocket old screws showing,

but you still want to screw everything together,

you can just use those dowel rods and fill that hole.

You got to counter, a perfectly drilled

three eighths inch countersunk hole.

You can use those three eighths inch dowels to fill that,

and then sand them flush.

If you're interested in any of the tools, the jigs,

supplies that we're using in this video,

there's a link in the description below.

It'll take you to those products.

I also get a lot of questions asking

if they can just use a regular screw

instead of a pocket hole screw.

I don't recommend that

because the pocket hole screw actually has a flat head,

almost like a washer, warsher, on the end right there.

Whereas a typical screw,

you see it has that angled head on there.

That's going to let it drive too deep for you,

and you're not going to like the outcome

because it's going to be popping through like before,

and you're going to have to fix that hole.

So I highly recommend just picking up some pocket screws.

Make sure you're getting good quality ones.

I'll drop links in the description below to some

that I recommend so that you don't get cheap ones

that break on you too easy.

So this is a cross section.

I just cut this board to show you so that you can see

what a pocket hole looks like from the side.

And you see where this bit has gone in there,

and it stops right there,

what does that do?

You can see actually see the imprint

of the long bit right there.

It's pretty cool.

So that stops right there and creates that shoulder,

but it also has pre drilled the hole for you.

So when you drive your regular pocket screw in there,

it drives down until it hits the shoulder and it stops.

And you can see that the pocket screw's

sticking through there.

So that's how they work.

And that's how they're supposed to work.

What happens when you use a regular screw

that has that angle head and doesn't have the washer head

just like a pocket screw has that flat head,

when you use this type screw and it drives down in there,

what ends up happening is that there's no where to stop

because that angled head, so it just continues to go.

And you can even see here,

it continues to push on through

until it actually drive on past the

where that shoulder's at.

And lastly go too deep or it'll bust the wood

because it wasn't, it wasn't made for this type of screw.

You know what time it is?

Power tip time.

So my power tip for pocket hole joinery is to

always, always, always

have an extra pocket hole drill bit on hand.

If you've been using pocket hole joiner very long at all,

you know that the tips of these pocket hole bits

are very, very brittle and fragile.

You'll drop it.

It'll hit the pavement.

And then next thing you know, well, bam.

You've broken the tip off,

and it no longer works as a pocket hole bit.

So it actually don't work for anything.

You just throw it away.

They're not expensive at all.

So make sure you pick up a couple.

I usually keep at least two or three on hand

because I'm very clumsy.

I'll drop the pocket hole bit,

and it'll hit the concrete and then break the tip right off.

When you do throw them away, keep the stop collar

'cause they're still good and you may need it down the road.

Here's a bonus tip for you.

This is a rare earth magnet.

They are very, very, very sticky.

They will stick to metal.

This is aluminum.

It won't stick to that.

It won't stick to that.

It won't stick to that.

All that's aluminum, but this piece,

the actual clamp is metal.

It'll stick to that.

Why do you need a magnet there?

Your bits will stick to it.

And so will your Allen wrenches,

so that you can adjust your pocket hole jig.

This is extremely handy

because it keeps everything right here,

especially if you don't have a box to keep it in,

it doesn't get in the way of the clamp.

It doesn't get in the way of the material

that you're using to drill pocket holes with.

Now I just throw those on there.

You can see there,

it's a pretty strong magnet.

You can actually stick them through

from the bottom or on the other side,

and it keeps it a little more out of the way.

That's just a good, quick fix for you.

You can see it's not in the way

of the pocket hole clamp at all.

You can just move those back and forth,

and it'll hold everything in place

so that you don't-

(banging)

so that you don't lose any of your bits,

drivers, or adjustment wrenches.

So I get a lot of questions asking

what size pocket hole screw you need

for the size material that you're going to

be using to join together.

Go to pockethileking.com.

Right there on the front page,

I've got a screw guide that tells you exactly

what size screw you're going to need

for the material size you're using.

These tips are pocket hole king approved.

Go to pocketholeking.com.

Check the website out.

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