Using Kreg wood plugs

[George Stoltz]

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips for working with Kreg wood plugs?  Do the plugs have to be sanded flush?

[james wilhelm]

YES , if you want a nice finish , sometimes  they will be a little long  ! If you have a table mount disk sander  with a miter gauge  you can set the miter up with the long taper and sand off about 1/4 " on the end that goes in the hole first , hope this helps !!!

[R. E. Woods]

Woodsmith has a tip on trimming plugs with a handplane. I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

http://www.woodsmithtips.com/2013/01/24/

[KregRep]

Kreg plugs are purposely extra long. That's because pocket holes may be different depths depending on the screw, wood, and application that you are using. You can trim them flush in several ways.

You can sand, but if there's much plug exposed that can be time consuming and you risk accidentally sanding the area around the plug.

The Woodsmith tip mentioned above works: using a hand plane. You do have to be careful to prevent tearout, though. Use a very sharp plane iron and take a very light cut--you'll need multiple passes.

My favorite method is to first trim the plugs with a flush cut saw, like this one. This type of saw has the teeth set only on one side, so it won't scratch the wood surface. If you're worried about scratches, put down some masking tape first for the saw to ride on. After you've trimmed the plugs flush, just sand a little bit to smooth everything out, and you're done.

KregRep

[Alan Shotts]

My apologies to the KREG people, but I make most of my own plugs, especially for those areas that are not really visible.

I used a piece of really old, hard oak about 2x3x3 inches for the jig to cut the plugs. I started by using my KREG jig to dill a pocket hole in the oak. Then I drilled out the pilot hole so I could insert a 10d nail easily. To use it, I insert a dowel and then cut it flush with my band saw (you could use a hand saw, but I'm lazy). Then use the nail to punch out the plug. With a little practice you can then cut a second plug by just making a 90 degree cut on your cut-off piece of dowel. I've made enough that I know how long to cut my dowels so I end up with two plugs with one cut in the jig. I only have to do minimal sanding because my plugs are made to fit my holes.

[Ken Darga]

When installing plugs into the pocket holes, I cut them flush with the workpiece, using a ''flush-cut'' or ''razor'' saw---

then followed by sanding, if needed.

This type flush-cut saw, is very handy---

it features a folding blade, that stores in the slot of the folding handles.

It can be stored conveniently in an apron or shirt pocket, for ''at-the-ready'' accessibility. 

Flush cutting flexible blade saw 

Alternate flush cutting tools:

Flexible dovetail saw

Flush cutting power saw

Hand plane

Router