Pocket Hole Depth issue

[Scott Shumaker]

New purchaser - bought a K4MS for a king platform bed I'm making,  Joining 2x4's and 2x6's.  I was confused by the stop collar guide.  I thought the setup for 1.5 materials was the *end* of the plastic rest and not the same marking as the 1.25 stop.  When I did some test holes, I had some screws poking through other side of the joints and I assumed I was overdriving the screws so I turned the driver to it's lowest setting and then drilled all my pocket holes. 

Now I realize that I've drilled all the pocket holes for my project too deep by about 1/4".  Can I get by just using 2in screws rather than the 2.5 you'd normally use to join 2x?  I really don't want to have to scrap the whole frame. 

FWIW it took a lot of googling to find out that 1.5 and 1.25 material both have the same stop collar setting.  That should really be explained better - the markings on the jig itself are confusing.  Why is the groove the bit sits in .25" longer than the furthest setting on the 1.5" side?  

[KregCS]

Scott, 

Unfortunately I am not be able to give a definite yes or no on if a 2" screw would work, since this would not be based on the correct settings. I recommend testing on some scrap pieces to see if this option gives a strong enough joint for your application. You could offer additional support by drilling a third hole at the correct setting and using the 2 1/2" screw. 

The 1 1/2" and the 1 1/4" share the same marking due to the additional 1/2" of screw when you jump up from 1 3/8". In order to compensate for this additional 1/2", the pocket hole has to be shortened. The reason why the slot is longer than the furthest setting is that we wanted the slots to be uniform on both sides. As you can see, the marking for the 1 3/8" setting is farther out than the line for the 1 1/2" setting.  

Hopefully that clears up any confusion with the setup of the jig. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact us.  

[Jason van Rooyen]

While I was deciding on which Kreg jig to get (K5 vs K4) it was clear that the K5 setup was way easier. Although the K5 is more expensive it was well worth it. The front mounted handle, ratcheting clamp system and stop collar setting block are IMO what makes the K5 well worth the extra cash. The handy little sticker that relates material thickness to drill block height and recommended screw length also took the guess work out of it.

[Pale Writer]

Ahem...

Well, IMHO this could be cleared up once and for all by some pertinent diagrams.  Clearly this boggles many newbie minds for the same reason: it looks entirely illogical and, in spite of what one sees in the political miasma these days, there ARE still a few logical minds fumbling about in the wild.  Then the answer and diagrams could be noted in the online documentation, if not the printed manual.  And then a sticky post atop this forum.

To top it off, the seemingly rational scheme of whipping a nickel out of your pocket would apparently cause a fail if the standard screw lengths are followed. 

So what it boils down to is that one had better assume the given gauges are only an approximate STARTING place -- what one REALLY has to do is trial-and-error TESTING.  Yeah, now THAT'S a SLICK approach!

About as slick as the fact that I cannot insert the drill bit into the guide bushings (by hand) with anything short of a RIDICULOUS amount of force - and then pulling it out by hand is nigh impossible - without grabbing vice grips.  This I would expect, had I purchased a Chinesium knock-off through bang-good or such, but - I thought I was buying American quality....

Want a little cheese with that whine?

Yeah - well....

Logical table I measured:

eighths       mm
4/8            83
5/8            88
6/8           92
7/8           95
8/8          100
9/8          107
10/8        106
11/8        111

12/8         106

Clear as mud.

KregCS said:

Scott, 

Unfortunately I am not be able to give a definite yes or no on if a 2" screw would work, since this would not be based on the correct settings. I recommend testing on some scrap pieces to see if this option gives a strong enough joint for your application. You could offer additional support by drilling a third hole at the correct setting and using the 2 1/2" screw. 

The 1 1/2" and the 1 1/4" share the same marking due to the additional 1/2" of screw when you jump up from 1 3/8". In order to compensate for this additional 1/2", the pocket hole has to be shortened. The reason why the slot is longer than the furthest setting is that we wanted the slots to be uniform on both sides. As you can see, the marking for the 1 3/8" setting is farther out than the line for the 1 1/2" setting.  

Hopefully that clears up any confusion with the setup of the jig. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact us.