Stopped pre-drilling for pocket holes and it saved me 2 hours on one job

I was building a pantry cabinet in my shop last Tuesday, and I got sick of stopping every 10 seconds to swap bits. Just ran the screws in full speed with no pilot hole, and not a single split in the plywood. Tried it on some oak face frames later and still no issues. Am I the only one who's been wasting time on this step?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora73516d ago

Oh man, same here. I was putting together a bunch of shop cabinets last month and just got so tired of swapping bits over and over. I ran maybe 30 screws into some cheap birch plywood without predrilling and not one split. Then I got cocky and tried it on some poplar face frames and still nothing. I think we've all been brainwashed by the "you gotta predrill or it'll explode" guys for way too long. Been doing it on everything now except really thin stuff or super hard maple, and my builds are moving so much faster.

simon_chen16d ago

Huh, I don't know if I buy that completely. I get the frustration with swapping bits, but I've had too many narrow pieces crack on me when I got lazy. Maybe it depends on your wood selection or screw size, but I've learned the hard way that skipping predrilling on stuff like oak or tight grain cherry is a fast track to wasting material. You got lucky on that birch plywood because it's pretty stable, but I wouldn't call it brainwashing to be cautious. How many screws did you sink into that poplar before you hit a split?