Thread: plugs for pocket holes

Woodworkers Warehouse in Braeside sell them, but when I looked packs of them were expensive, and they never seemed to have the right species that I was after.

I recently bought some dowell and a flush cutting saw, and am yet to do a big job, but a couple of trial fit-offs look promising so far.

Cheers,


Justin.

The idea of pocket hole joints is that you use them where they wont be seen.
i.e. on the back of a cupboard face frame.
These are fixed so although they can be felt if you run your fingers behind the face frame you cant actually see them.

A cabinet maker told me that you can buy a plug cutting bit.
You use a piece of scrap from your job to cut plugs so that they will match your timber perfectly.
Steck

It wouldnt work steck.
A plug cutter cuts across the grain and the hole is at 15° with the grain.
If a plug is glued in then chiseled and sanded flat the grain pattern will be different to the grain on the face frame.
It would work if the plug was cut into the endgrain of a piece of wood so the grain pattern looks similar.

FWIW,

I've only ever had plug cutters that were relatively short, designed to plug normal dowel holes or recessed screw holes. They generally would not be long enough to fill pocket holes. :confused:

Having said that - I'm sure I've seen someone promoting a cutter for this purpose so I'll be interested to see if anyone else's memory is better than mine.

Jamie

Pretty sure that Vermont/American make a long plug cutter, apart from that you can always hide the holes with a trim even on the inside.
Apart from WW Warehouse as already mentioned.
Of course this is assuming that yours is the same size as a Kreg Jig.

Most of the jigs seem to use a 3/8" step drill, eq to 9.525mm.

I think Porta make a 9.5mm dowel, Bunnings Mitre 10 etc carry Porta mouldings, should have it in hoop pine or tassie oak.

Unsure if there is a 10mm dowel that you could sand down (tedious)to size, or you could make a dowel cutting jig to use with your router, to machine it down to exact size.

Alternatively you could cut square blanks of the desired timber of a workable length, and use the homemade jig to machine these to size.

The ideas I've seen for said dowel cutting jig use some variation of a block of wood with a hole the desired size going right through (use the pocket hole drill bit for this), with the entry side enlarged somewhat to accept the larger size of the blank. The router with a cove bit (could possibly use a straight bit) is attached to the top of the block so the bit protrudes into the side of the entry, with the bottom of the bit in line with the side of the through hole. The blank is then rotated (by hand or with a drill) through the block (with the router going - makes it easier to push presumably ) and, provided the planets line up and the positive chi is working for you, the dowel exits the block machined to the desired size.

Waxing the hole :eek: would help I'd guess.


HTH..........cheers.........Sean

I purchased lots of plugs from Gregory Machinery in QLD. All Aussie timbers!

Check out their web site.

I have mostly used the 'tassie oak' and pine so far so good. But I went to try a couple of silky oak plugs and they seem to be a bit large for the holes. Let me check again the fit before I lead anyone to believe there may be a problem with this source.