Hiding Pocket Holes with Pocket Hole Plugs
George VondriskaScrew pockets are a great way to put projects together, but are unsightly. If the pocket holes on your project are going to show when it’s done, there’s a great (and easy) way to hide them. All it takes is glue, dowels and some hand tools. You can even turn pocket holes into a decorative accent.
If you're okay with how pocket holes look, and they are all on the inside faces of the pieces, then I'm okay with it. However, I wanna show you how you can plug the pocket holes very easily. Let's go through screw pockets in general. First I've got my pocket hole jig here, and we're gonna drill a couple of pocket holes into this piece. And then let's do some assembly.
Now, when you assemble, we do wanna make sure that the parts are gonna stay lined up, there's a tendency for them to creep, because of the angle that we drilled the hole there. So a really easy way to get them to line up is to use a clamp like this. Once it's set to the right thickness, we are also gonna add some glue to the joint. And that does go a long way toward making these joints nice and strong. And because we're working with hardwood, not softwood, the screws that we'll be using are fine threaded screws.
So the rule of the road there with pocket holes is if you're working in soft woods or manmade materials, these should be coarse threads. If we're working on hardwoods, we should have fine threads like we do on this one. All right now, like I was saying earlier, if you're okay with that, I'm okay with it. However, we can make it look better by masking those holes, simply using dowels that match our material. When we do pocket holes, these are three eighths inch holes.
So if you go out and you get three eighths inch dowels, cut them a little bit long. Insert in the hole and then, what I'm gonna do is I put this in as I'm holding it down, because of the angle of that pocket, I wanna make sure it stays seated. And then tap it the rest of the way using a mallet. So that's the part right there, it's a little bit tricky to get it started. And we wanna make sure we don't mess up that pocket hole which will affect the fit between the pocket and the doll.
I'm gonna let that glue dry and then come back and show you how to finish these off. Glue is dry. So let's move on to phase two. First thing, let's cut off the excess. And for that I really like these pole saws, very fine teeth cuts on the pull stroke you can get these at woodworking specialty stores, what I'm really doing is letting the saw itself ride just above the surface of the material.
So that acts as my guide. Second verse, same as the first. The other thing that's cool with these saws is that see how flexible that blade is. So when I'm doing this kind of work, it allows me to cut that, but pull the handle up off of the bench where if this was say a dovetail saw with a spine in it, everything would have to be down here. But what I'm doing frankly without even thinking about it is I'm bowing the blade getting the handle up here where it's easier for me to hold and work with, while at the same time being able to make the cut.
It's always great when you can make the cut. Now we're close but we're not done. Now we've got oak plugs in our oak frame to help mask those holes. This I think looks a whole lot better than simply having the pocket holes in there. Here we've got pretty good color match and grain match.
Maybe instead of trying to mask it, you just wanna make it into a feature of the project. So in this case, using the same jig drove my pocket holes, and I've got maple, plug the holes with walnut. So it creates a contrast. if you're gonna do this, and you're really gonna draw attention to this, you do wanna make sure you have some symmetry to the layout. So in this case, I'd wanna make sure that the distance from edge to pocket hole and edge to pocket hole is identical, because if it's not or if they're off center, or there's something weird looking about it, because of the color contrast your eyes gonna go right to that and you're gonna see that they're a little bit weird.
So plugging the pocket holes is a great way to make sure that when we're done, those pocket holes are as invisible as they can be.
Can you tell me name of saw again? Wasn’t able to find one that flexible. Keep up great work. Love your videos.
Has anyone tried the tool sold as a pocket hole plug cutter? If so, what kind of results were achieved?
Castle 6 degree low angle pockets are much nicer looking than drilled pockets.
Why yous screws at all? Dowel joints are very stron.
Interesting! It also looks like you can use the dowel waste as a pre-cut plug.
I am building my grandson a desk with 4 drawers running horizontal. I was pondering different ways to build the case work for the drawers, when I came across this video. I've got it figured out. Thanks- John
I made a fixture to pre-cut the dowels on my band saw. Insert the dowel, cut on the plus side (1/32) and then, because the dowel has the same angled cut, cut the dowel straight across. This leaves two fillers for pocket holes. Re-insert the dowel, and cut again. Use a fine tooth band saw blade. Anyone interested in pictures of the jig, email me at: Papamelj@cox.net.
There are dowels and there are dowels. The dowels I used in this video were hardwood (red oak) dowels, ordered from Rockler. I've found that the dowels sold at home centers are the ones that are typically undersized.
I use pocket holes from time to time. For a computer desk I made which was rather large, I used no glue joining the parts using pocket holes. The reason, was that the desk needed to be able to be disassembled in the shop and reassembled in the office. If it needs to be moved again it can be disassembled again. I didn't hide the holes, line of sight did that for me. I do thank you for your tip however. I may use it on a headboard I am planning.
The problem is that the 3/8" dowel, and the plugs that Kreg sells are both too small. The diameter is anywhere from 1/16" to an 1/8" smaller than the (pocket) hole. You can't get a tight fit...