Many woodworkers opine on Pocket Screws: cheating, simple, easy, weak, strong, cheap, effective. All of these are true, and so this post will only go into how easy pocket holing is... and why it may not be right for your project.

Using pocket-holes, I was able to go from a pile of lumber to an actual, recognizable table in under two hours. That was exhilarating and awesome... and introduced some unintentional errors. One of my aprons was just a SMIDGE off during glue-up, and I had to unscrew it, clean it, and then glue it back up again. And that's where the hardware comes in.

Pocket screws seem to be sold exclusively by KREG, and to get the most out of them, you have to use some extra hardware, also sold by Kreg (namely their face-clamps and pin-clamps).

Pictured here is my emergency-purchase of more pocket screws than I will ever need, in a format I will probably hardly ever use (the fine kind, for use screwing into hardwoods). Since my design used 32 screws, and the 'demo' packet comes with ten, I had to go out and buy more screws (frustrating) which really aren't any good for any other uses.

Oh well, enough whinging. I did assemble a table, so now it's time for finishing. Since the aprons and tabletop are pine, but the legs are oak, I opted for 'Red Oak' stain...