Cutting Plugs and Using Plug Cutters

On this project, I've got going, it's a CD rack, this piece is gonna end up capturing over the outside like this. And the screws are gonna go through this into that end grain to hold everything together. When this is all done, I don't want a bunch of wood screws showing on the outside of this. So I'm gonna use a plug cutter in order to fix that and make sure the screws don't show. So here's the deal with a plug cutter.

One, we've got to use this in a drill press. You can't do it handheld. What we've got going here is a cutter where the inside is hollow. So as this augers it's way down into the wood, it's gonna leave behind a plug or a button sticking up in the middle. Now down inside here, there's kind of a concave surface.

As this cuts its way in, you'll see when I start cutting plugs, it's gonna leave a little convex surface on the end of the plug that makes it easier to get the plug started in the hole. So one of the things that's real critical is that on those screw holes, I pre-drilled for those with a 3/8th inch bit, 'cause now I'm using a 3/8th inch plug cutter. These are available in a bunch of different sizes. The material I'm using here has been matched in color and grain, so it's a pretty close match to what I'm working with here. So when I get those plugs in there'll be as invisible as I can make them.

Next step, now I'll just drill away. Now the plug's not gonna pop out of there because it's not as long as the board is deep. And that's good. I don't want the plug to pop out, 'cause then it would actually get stuck up inside the plug cutter and I'd have to stop each time. So it's the plug is gonna get left behind in the material, then as a next step, we go to the bandsaw in order to cut those out.

That's plenty of plugs for my projects. You can see there's a little bit of a rounded end on those babies. Next step, we go to a bandsaw, get this chunk isolated out of the board, and use the band side and relieve those plugs out of the board itself. Next step here at the bandsaw is to actually part these plugs from their board. So what I'm gonna do is use this depth gauge and project that down alongside the plug, 'til it bottoms out, lock that in place.

Then I'm gonna transfer that location up here onto the board. There. So now what that pencil line shows me is if I cut just to this side of the pencil line, I should part all those plugs out of the baseboard. Part all the plugs would mean as I'm cutting, boom, boom, boom, they're falling out of this thing. I don't want them to fall out and end up on the floor.

So instead I'm gonna put some masking tape across the face, and that's gonna just bind everything together until I'm ready to get them. That line I put on the edge now tells me where to locate my bandsaw fence. Remember, I wanna go just a little bit to my right of that pencil line. I wanna make sure that I cut through the plug so I get it to come out of there. Right about there.

Now I can bring my upper guide back down. And we should be ready to make plugs. Now what we should have inside here, there they are, all of our wooden plugs. It is easy to lose these babies. So it's a good idea to cut more than you need.

They do end up on the floor and have real good tendency to just kind of disappear in the sawdust on ya. So tape a plug cutter, great way to cap screws. What's really, really nice about this is that what we've done here is created face grain plugs. In other words, the grain in this plug is going this way, where a lot of times if you buy plugs to cover screws, they're end grain plugs, the grain's go in this way, that end grain shows up much more obviously under finish, especially under stain than a face screen plug would. When you put these in look at the grain in the face itself, get it oriented the same way as the grain in your project, and this thing is gonna be nearly invisible over that screw head.