Dining Table - Part Five - Filling Pocket Holes

In my previous post I posted pictures of how I joined the tabletop together using Pocket Holes. These create an extremely strong joint but as you can see the holes left are large. You can purchased wooden plugs to place in the pocket holes but they can work out expensive so I decided to make my own.

I purchased 9.5mm pine dowel in lengths of 1.2m and cut them down to the appropriate length to place into the holes, I was able to cut 24 plugs out of each length. I popped a little PVA glue into each pocket hole and slide on one of my home made plugs.

Once I had them all in and the glue dried I needed to flush cut them so they would blend in with the rest of the table top. I used a flexible flush cut saw, this thing is great, the teeth are only on one side and the other side is flat. This allows the saw to be flush against the piece you are working on to cut the dowel without marring the good surface.

Once they were all cut a little sanding, some slight filling and it is all done.

Looks pretty good, much easier and cheaper than having to use filler to fill the pocket holes.

Until next time.... Happy Building

Dining Table - Part Four - The tabletop

After drilling approximately 120 pocket holes I joined the table top together once I had planed the side of the planks flat. Clamped together by heavy Sash clamps I was able glue and easily drive the pocket hole screws in.

Here is the first picture, the guy at Bunnings didn't listen correctly when I gave the directions on how long to cut the lengths so I ended up with lengths longer than the other fortunately the shortest length was plenty to cover the length of the top.

Here is a closer picture of all the pocket holes

And once I removed the clamps and trimmed down the ends to the correct length, its looking good.

The other problem with the wood was it was terrible to work with, very uneven and bowed. But I have a plan which will flatten that table top without me spending days trying to sand it. All will be revealed soon.

Until next time.... Happy Building