Professional’s have used pocket hole joinery for years ...and for good reason. It's a simple way to achieve a strong, professional quality joints. A pocket hole is simply a hole drilled at an angle that forms a "pocket" for the screw to drive into. Think of it as a "highly engineered" toe-nailing technique. What makes it precise is the design of the pocket hole jig that guides the drill bit into the wood at a specific angle to produce a carefully "engineered" hole to house the screw head. After the pocket hole is drilled, a specially designed fastener is used to assemble the joints. These case-hardened screws are designed with self-drilling tips that will not split the wood while the screws are driven in, even in hardwoods.

What About Strength? The steel self-tapping screws are much stronger than the wood fasteners they replace – dowels, tenons, biscuits, etc. Along with that, the self tapping screws exert a tremendous amount of clamping pressure, drawing the surfaces of the wood into the “intimate contact” that adhesive manufacturers say is among the most important factors in producing a solid glue joint. Finally, the highly compressed screws stay in the workpiece permanently; it’s like being able to leave your project clamped solidly together - forever. The superior strength of a pocket hole joint has actually been proven. Independent testing found that a pocket screw joint failed at 707 pounds when subjected to a shear load while a comparable mortise and tenon joint failed at 453 pounds – meaning that the pocket screw joint was approximately 35% stronger.