Pocket Hole Screws. Fine or Coarse

[Trent Flemming]

Hello Creekers,

Which pocket hole screws do you use for red oak? In my limited experience the coarse screws seem to hold better than the fine thread. The only hardwood I have tested this on is red oak. The Kreg instructions call for fine thread though. Thank you for your thoughts.

Trent

[Rod Torgeson]

Trent.....Use the fine threads for hardwoods(oak) and the coarse threads for softwoods(pine). Hope this helps.

Rod<---in Appleton, WA

[Steve Mellott]

I use fine thread screws for red oak and other hard woods. They seem to work very well. I only use coarse thread screws for pine and other soft woods.

Steve

[David Giles]

Either seem to work well in red oak. Occasionally the fine thread strip out. Once my big box of fine thread are used up, I'll switch to 100% coarse thread for red oak.

[Jim W. White]

In my experience, the coarse screws work fine in red oak ...but split white oak badly.

[Randal Stevenson]

While we are on this subject, what about going from solid oak, to oak plywood? Which one then?

TIA

[David Duke]

While we are on this subject, what about going from solid oak, to oak plywood? Which one then?

TIA

Depend on which way your going, pocket in the ply secured to the solid I use fine; reverse that with the pocket in the solid secured to the ply I use course.

[Jim W. White]

I think the coarse screws are much more appropriate for any plywood application (including oak veneered) ...just my opinion and experience.

Jim in Idaho

[Matthew Voss]

The threads should be matched to the material you are joining TO.

I've also had luck with the Kreg Hi-Lo screws in just about every type of wood.

[Prashun Patel]

Oak plywood might only be veneered.

I used finethread on a red oak bench I made and it worked beautifully. Never got any splits. I wonder with a coarser thread if you'd risk more splits.

[Mike Goetzke]

From my experience I've given up on trying to figure out which screw works better. I just order large lots of high-low screws. They have worked well in bot soft & hard woods for me.

Mike

[frank shic]

coarse pocket hole screws cause greater shifting in hardwoods. fine pocket hole screws in plywoods don't hold as tightly as their coarse counterparts.

[Mike Goetzke]

coarse pocket hole screws cause greater shifting in hardwoods. fine pocket hole screws in plywoods don't hold as tightly as their coarse counterparts.

I thought the theory was that the major diameter was larger on the coarse screws and tended to split hardwoods - with the clamp load I apply when fastening I have never seen the pieces shift.

[frank shic]

mike, you're absolutely correct: coarse pocket screws have a greater tendency to split hardwoods like maple which i've discovered the hard awy in the past when i was too lazy to drive down the street to buy the fine pocket screws from rockler. currently i'm building a mobile four router door/drawer station. i found that using coarse screws on poplar tended to make the joint creep a little bit more than using the fine screws.

[Steve Clardy]

I use the QuickScrew brand, Hi-Lo screw.
They cover both hard and soft woods.