Basically they are for dummies :)

Or at least they are certainly not used in fine woodworking.

Kreg:

Love or hate their pocket screw setups for joinery?

ETA: Heh. should have cruised the thread before I asked!

I use pocket holes for joinery that is not seen.

When I get a new table saw I will finally be able to start m and t joinery.

Pocket hole jigs are good for simple projects or production environments. Building fine furniture it would not be acceptable.

Why?

Very simple question. Too fast? Too easy? There's no structural reason why pocket hole joinery would be insufficient on concealed joints.

"Fine furniture" is a nonsense term, and I'm a woodworker who doesn't use pocket hole joinery often.

We have different opinions on fine furniture. I wont use pocket holes on my furniture. You do you, I'll do me.

If your only reason is your own sensibilities, that's fine, but it's also unfair to suggest that "fine furniture" does not use pocket holes.

https://www.amazon.com/Furniture-Masterworks-John-Thomas-Seymour/dp/0883891263

You will find plenty of pocket holes appearing in that book - a book about the works of two of the finest Federal period craftsmen to have lived. In fact, many antique furniture uses pocket holes rather extensively. It's not like the technology was invented by Kreg. They made it convenient and let a lot of new people get into woodworking.

They are quick, clean, and strong, and certainly appropriate for concealed joints. The strength of the joint has been debated, but that's true with anybody's preferred method (dowels, M&T, loose tenons) as they argue over which one you can land a helicopter on.

Pocket holes are not for exposed joints, and the plugs don't really help with that. The absolutely perfect joints shown in Kreg literature look OK, but I have only ever plugged a hole if a joint could be felt (like the back of a face frame) but not seen. I have yet to see or hear any good reason why pocket holes are not suitable for concealed joints other than personal preference.

I can see OP's point on pocket holes.  Makes sense to me. Woodworking for some is an art, not just a job that needs to get done.  And that art is usually based on the way woodworking was done hundreds of years ago. You know what the difference between a carpenter and a ship builder was many years ago?  Not much.  One was making bigger pieces of wood lock together using joinery methods and the other was making smaller pieces of wood lock together.
When I visited Key West one of the points brought up was how has the houses down there lasted as long as they have with all the hurricanes that have hit that area. Some of the homes are hundreds of years old.  Answer was they were build by ship builders that used locking joinery with wood pins like they did on ships.

I see pocket holes kind of like this:

Film vs. digital photography
hand shaped body panels vs. half gallon of body filler over so-so fitting panels
painting on canvas/paper vs. paint by number

This is why so many wood workers seek out old world tools and restore them and put them back to work again.  This is why they pass down the techniques used before the table saw and router was invented.

FWIW, I use the shit out of some pocket holes!  

I built my current round of cabinet carcasses with pocket holes. The most annoying problem was that the screws pull with a shear and then that can pull the alignment off, especially at the corners. I build some jigs and used clamps to minimize this, but it's still a pain in the ass and visible on frameless cabinets.

Now that I have a Domino, I may use those to hold alignment and pocket screws to clamp the glue joint. I'm going to make some test pieces and see how it goes. The next kitchen will also be frameless and I want perfect corners, not slipped by a 32nd or 16th.

Somewhere I saw a tip on how to prevent this "pocket screw pull".  They used a brad gun and shot a brad into the surface, but somehow held it up so it didn't penetrate all the way. I think they used cardboard?   They then snipped the head off with dykes and used the brad sticking up to grip the wood like a spike so it didn't slide as the pocket screw was tightened down.
I'll see if I can find that again.

fine furniture uses traditional joinery, mortise and tenon, dovetail / blind dovetail, dado and rabbit etc. pocket hole is anything but fine. have a obese person sit on a table or chair made with traditional joinery and wiggle around it's no big deal. then have the same obese person sit on a table or chair made with pocket screws and see what happens.

And there it is.  ARF picking on us fat people again……
But excellent point.

How can I fix this gouge and scratches to the finish of my wood console shifter bezel?

Polish with 2000 grit auto polish and then 3000 grit polish. Touch up gouge with a dark walnut touch up pen.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TY6QJTN?tag=arfcom00-20

I’m neither the OP, nor a poopyhead! I believe I have been vindicated in this thread!

OP, favorite brand of parallel clamps do you use? And which brands do you avoid?

I use a brand no longer made. Modern favorite would be Jorgensen great quality and price second would be Jett or Bessy.

I now avoid Irwin. The quality has really gone down hill.

Irwin's trigger clamps are very useful for face lamination and other smaller jobs where you can easily use two dozen of them. They are very handy. I have never used their parallel clamps, but they are well-regarded. I imagine they're identical to other brands.

For what it's worth I have not had much of a problem with cheap Powertec parallel clamps. I think the primary reason I reach for them is they are less than half the weight of the Jorgensen clamps. I mean the Jorgensens are a workhorse and that's reflected in the weight.

The only bad clamps of any type I've used are the smaller Bessey bar clamps. I assume they're light duty because the bar bends very easily. They still work, but it's surprising to see the bar turn into a bow.

I want to start making coffee table with the milled live edge slab wood I have from my property.  I'm not a woodworker, strictly an amateur.  They will look like the pics below (examples).

Question:  Where's the best place to buy the legs?








2nd question:  Best finish?

Thanks!