Bad marketing.

[Steven Power]

I like Kreg products and all but I don't see why they have to market pocket holes as a new technology they have created.

Workshops have been using pockets holes for years by either using a router to cut a groove or even a pillar drill with a home made jig. 

Why the need to try and sell something that kreg didnt actually invent. 

"Kreg Joinery™ is a relatively new

technique in which an angled hole is drilled
into one workpiece only and then is joined
to the second workpiece using a specialized
self-tapping wood screw."

Looking deeper into it apparently pocket holes go as far back as the Egyptians who bored a hole at an angle then drove a wooden dowel into the hole to join two pieces.  

[Joan Gribskov]

Isn't that actually really GOOD marketing?  A jointing technique as ancient as the Egyptian culture that is accessible to anyone interested in building quality furniture - whether as a business or a hobby - is fabulous!

[kenny from Sundre]

While the concept may not be new,  it is the afordable and easly usable jig  that brings pocket hole joinery into the twenty first century for anyone that wants to use it.

[Jay Boutwell]

Simply put it was not until Kreg produced their jig that the method became popular to the woodworker whom worked in a small shop.  Prior to this the main use of pocket holes joinery was done in large cabinet shops to assemble face frames and done with a stationary boring tool.  Some manufacturing companies use it to assemble a limited style of cabinet and furniture.  This was also done on a large stationary machine.  The most common was the ones like the popular tooling made and known as "ritter" and a few others but used the same technique of taking the pieces to the machine and boring the hole.  It was then assembled using a screw and sometime both with glue and a screw.  Not only was these tools large and limited to their use they were expensive.

When Kreg developed the Kreg Jig it immediately became affortable and rapidly introduced the general public to pocket hole joinery.  Prior to this few knew what a pocket hole was let alone being able to use it and use it in such large scale and doing so with affortable tooling.  Until Kreg introduced the jig it was not a portable tooling that could easily be taken to the job site or even to a cabinet case of furniture part sitting on a work bench in a shop.

 Discounting the simple piece of aluminum or pot metal with a hone set at an angle that you had to somehow clamp to your work piece, the next attempt to to introduce to the public pocket holes was porter cable.  They too introduced a bench top model that cut a slot in the wood in a multi step operation.  This operation required you aline the piece to be drilled under a clamp, clamp it and them pull a lever forward that raised a router with a cutting bit and set at an angle up and into the piece and then pushed the lever forward to lower the router.   All that was cut was long ugly slot cut without even a pilot hole.  The the next step was to introduce a long aircraft style bit in a drill through the back of the cutting machine and drill a pilot hole from the end of the material.  This its self was a tedious task and slow as well as the slot it left behind would be not only ugly but very hard to hide.

There has been other companies who have made attempts to copy and improve the Kreg Jig and it functions and ease of use however they are far from being able to introduce something that will out perform the kreg Jig technology.

Therefore I will give Kreg Tools the credit for introducing something new in technology that has not yet been reproduced that will out perform the jig they introduced.  Even back 20 plus years ago It was Kreg Tools  that changed my total idea and methods of building cabinets, and moved cabinet production and enabled the small scale woodworker into a modern era where with little experience could produce  quick, accurate and strong joinery and do so without a large investment.

Maybe the Egyptians used the method in their time but they did not introduce the modern technology that Kreg Tools did nor had anyone else for that matter.

[Ken Darga]

I personally doubt the Egyptians used pocket hole joinery.

Tenon joinery was the go-to method.

Around the first century, screw shaped tools became common, however, historians do not know who invented the first. Early screws were made from wood and were used in wine presses, olive oil presses, and for pressing clothes. 

Metal screws used as fasteners did not appear in Europe until the 1400s.

In 1770, an English instrument maker, invented the first satisfactory screw-cutting lathe.

In 1797, an Englishmen, invented a large screw-cutting lathe that made it possible to mass-produce accurately sized screws.

[Mandodad]

well put Jay

[Steven Power]

Whether the Egyptians did use a similar method or not I can't prove but the point was Kreg trying to sell this "remarkable" New type of joint they have renamed after themselves when people had already been using such joint beforehand.

It would be like me creating a machine to make mortice and tenons faster and easier for the public and trying to call it a "steven joint", when all it is, is an aid to assist in making a m and t joint, if that makes sense.

Like I said I like kreg products and they do help in making certain cabinetry tasks more accurate and easier to complete.

[Ken Darga]

Steven,

Egyptian farmers used oxen to pull a single-blade plow, to till the soil.

Today, there are farmers with John-Deere tractors, or the like, that pull multiple plow blades that till multiple furrows or soil. 

Milwaukee Tools, and the like, make electric circular saws that cut wood more efficiently and faster than the old hand saws of yester-year.  

Egyptians use adze, and the like, before hand saws became available.

I'm sure some may have used the same adze to make furrows, preparing the soil for planting corn.

Before the introduction of tank weaponry, cannons were the norm---

before that, people used clubs and threw rocks.  

Lots of progress has been made since the Egyptian era, 

and wood joinery methods were first introduced.

[Jay Boutwell]

Well I guess if you developed a new method of making a mortise and tenon joint then you could and would have the right to call it a "Steven Joint".  In this case Kreg developed a new method of creating the pocket hole joinery.
 
Steven Power said:

Whether the Egyptians did use a similar method or not I can't prove but the point was Kreg trying to sell this "remarkable" New type of joint they have renamed after themselves when people had already been using such joint beforehand.

It would be like me creating a machine to make mortice and tenons faster and easier for the public and trying to call it a "steven joint", when all it is, is an aid to assist in making a m and t joint, if that makes sense.

Like I said I like kreg products and they do help in making certain cabinetry tasks more accurate and easier to complete.

[Cornelius W. Badie]

Right spot on! Kreg Tool did not invent pocket hole joinery, they simply created a better way to do it.

Jay Boutwell said:

Well I guess if you developed a new method of making a mortise and tenon joint then you could and would have the right to call it a "Steven Joint".  In this case Kreg developed a new method of creating the pocket hole joinery.
 
Steven Power said:

Whether the Egyptians did use a similar method or not I can't prove but the point was Kreg trying to sell this "remarkable" New type of joint they have renamed after themselves when people had already been using such joint beforehand.

It would be like me creating a machine to make mortice and tenons faster and easier for the public and trying to call it a "steven joint", when all it is, is an aid to assist in making a m and t joint, if that makes sense.

Like I said I like kreg products and they do help in making certain cabinetry tasks more accurate and easier to complete.

[Paul Jones]

Kreg built a better " mousetrap", good for them. Especially an affordable one.

[Justin]

I am learning more from this thread than in my college history courses.  Carry on Kreg, carry on.  

[Ken Darga]

Justin,

Those classes are history.

Here, we're dealing with the present.

Justin Everett said:

I am learning more from this thread than in my college history courses.  Carry on Kreg, carry on.