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Hot take: biscuit joints beat pocket screws for cabinet face frames and I'm tired of pretending otherwise
Three years ago I built a set of oak face frames for a kitchen in Boise using nothing but pocket screws because that's what the guy training me swore by, and within 14 months two of the stiles had shifted enough that the doors rubbed. Last month I rebuilt those same frames with floating tenons and glue, no metal fasteners at all, and the whole thing feels like one solid piece of wood when you knock on it. I get why guys love pocket screws, they're fast and cheap and you can crank out a whole run in an afternoon, but they don't hold a joint the same way a real mortise does. The screws rely on the threads biting into end grain, which is the weakest cut you can ask a piece of oak to make. The joint moves with every season change and eventually you're back at the same house fixing the same problem. What finally sold me was a 1912 farmhouse in Caldwell where the original frames were still tight after a hundred years of Idaho winters. So what's your cutoff, do you biscuit everything or only on painted work where nobody sees the seams?
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morgan_king3616d ago
Biscuits have their place but they're not the answer either, they're just a thin piece of compressed wood that swells up with glue and they can starve a joint if you clamp too hard. A real mortise and tenon is still the gold standard for face frames, pocket screws are just a shortcut for guys who need speed over long term hold. You're right about the end grain thing though, screws into end grain are basically asking for trouble down the road.
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