Pocket Screws to Secure Table Top?

[Anthony Watson]

I am building a small dining table for my in-laws, just four square legs with the table aprons connected with mortise and tenon joints (my first M&T project).

Anyway, everything I have read in the past has mentioned ways to allow movement as the table top expands and contracts. But I was checking out our own dining table yesterday (commercially bought) and see the top is connected to the aprons using pocket screws? We've owned the table a few years now and have not noticed any problems. It's a solid wood top, maple, I think. (I'm building my table with red oak).

Has anyone else used pocket screws to secure a table top like this?

Thanks,

Anthony

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Nope I wouldn't do that. The conventional wisdom is you have to alow for wood movement or you may have cracking. It's not that hard to use another method such as metal clips or just wood screws with oval holes to allow for movement. Are you sure the other table you're talking about is solid wood?

[Lee Schierer]

You would need to know if the table top on your existing table is solid wood or plywood. If it is plywood then the pocket screws would be an acceptable attachment method. They would not be acceptable unless they are mounting in slots for a solid wood top. You can use commercial Z clips or make your own L shaped mountinblocks from wood relatively easily.

[Matthew Voss]

I would think pocket screws would be acceptable if the hole was larger than the shank of the screw.

[Joe Scharle]

I have attached table tops and seat bottoms with pocket hole screws for years with no problems. Remember, pocket hole joinery has been around long before Kreg made it easier. I run them in tight, then back off 1/2 turn.

[John Schreiber]

The holes for the pocket hole screws in your table may be big enough to allow the wood to move. It could be as simple as wiggling the bit around after the hole is drilled and not tightening the screw all the way up.

[Rick Thom]

There are formulae for expansion of solid wood panels such as table tops which of course expand and contract seasonally across the grain. Someone here no doubt has a file handy which they could post for your info. It doesn't take a very wide table to move 1/8-1/4" which may be absorbed into the apron, bend the screws or worse crack the top. You might get lucky and survive it all but the solution is so simple, why would you tempt fate?
Here's a pic of some clips from Lee Valley, but they are available lots of places. You can easily cut the slot in the apron with a saw kerf or biscuit joiner, or just a sharp chisel etc.

[John Schreiber]

Here's the "Shrinkulator (http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/shrinkulator.htm)" which does the math on wood shrinkage.

What did we do before the Internet?

[Anthony Watson]

I was planning to use the clips from the start, but I was surprised to see the pocket screws holding the top on our own table. And yes, it's a 7/8" thick solid wood top made of finger jointed strips about 2-3" wide.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions....

Anthony

[Peter Quinn]

Pocket screws are fine despite what the skeptics seem to think. Drill your regular holes, run the screws in, take them out and tap the center of each pocket hole a size larger than the screw with another bit, voila, you have accommodated wood movement! Check the Kreg site for a more detailed explanation. A #7 screw in a #10 hole should work fine.

I have several pieces of commercial furniture, one of recent vintage, one nearly one hundred years old, both solid wood tops (one maple roughly 20X40", one walnut roughly 2X36"), both tops held on with pocket screws! No warping, no cracking. Kreq made pocket holes simple for the average user but did not invent this technology. It is proven over many years.

You don't want to tighten the screws like you would for a joint in a face frame, just snug enough to keep the top from rattling.

[Charlie Plesums]

I use pocket holes all the time ... but with a modification. At the point where the pocket screw comes through the apron, into the cross-grain sides of the top, I cut a biscuit slot in the top of the apron. There is still plenty of strength to hold the top on, but it also provides more room for movement than I can imagine in the wildest cases.

I don't bother with the biscuit slot in the apron along the long-grain side of the table top, since the apron can simply bow out as much as the top expands.

[Steve Clardy]

Pocket screws work for me. I just enlarge the holes also. ;)