Loading…
7
I swore pocket screws were for hacks until I watched a guy in Portland build a full face frame with them
I have been building cabinets for 11 years and I always looked down on pocket screw joinery for face frames. Last month I drove up to Portland to pick up a used drum sander from a guy named Dale who runs a two man shop out of a garage off Powell Blvd. He was finishing a set of maple uppers and every single face frame joint was pocket screwed, no biscuits, no mortise and tenon, nothing else. I bit my tongue but he caught me staring and just said "watch this" and grabbed a scrap and drove four screws in about 90 seconds. The joint was dead flush and when he clamped it to his bench and leaned on it, nothing moved. He told me he switched over after carpal tunnel surgery in 2019 because he could not hold a chisel for long stretches anymore. I came home and built a test frame with my Kreg jig and honestly it is every bit as strong as what I was doing before, plus I saved close to two hours on the whole run. Now I am wondering what else I have been doing the hard way just out of habit. Any of you switched a joinery method because of an injury or just getting older?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
amy_reed791mo ago
Dale got carpal tunnel in 2019 and switched to pocket screws, that makes sense for him, but that is exactly why I would not copy the method. A pocket screw joint holds up fine for a one time load test where you lean on it for a second, but wood moves with the seasons and those screws are mostly pulling at an angle through end grain, which is the weakest way to fasten anything. Give that maple frame five years of Portland humidity swings and you may see the joints creep or open up at the miter where the screw heads sit, and now you have a callback on a cabinet you already installed. Mortise and tenon and biscuits spread the load across the whole joint and let the wood move instead of fighting it. Saving two hours on a run is great until you are the guy who has to fix it later, and the customer does not care how fast your jig is, they care that the doors still line up in year eight. If your hands are shot then sure, do what you have to do, but do not kid yourself that it is the same joint, because it is not.
9