Pre-drilling is Always Required

If you don’t pre-drill your holes you’re going to fuck up your project every time.

Pre-drilling your boards before you drill is a total pain in the ass, but if you want to do the project right, you’ve got to do it. Here’s why.

Photo Courtesy of Steve Ramsey @ Woodworking for Mere Mortals — he’s the man

Every time your screw into a board, you risk having it split. That’s because you’re adding mass (the screw) into an area that may not have enough room for it (the fibers of the board). When there’s no room left — the board cracks. And it happens a lot.

The thinner the board, the more likely it won’t be able to resist and break. The closer you are to the edge of the board — same issue.

The best way to protect against your board cracking is to pre-drill a hole in it first.

There are actually two huge benefits to this. The first is that it doesn’t crack, but the second is that your drill is far more likely to create an accurate path for the screw than just firing a screw in and hoping it goes straight.

Stuff Worth Remembering

• Screwing into the face of a very soft material like plywood is fine (though even that will splinter at the edges).
• Always use a drill bit that’s smaller than the screw you’re using so that the screw has something left over to grab onto.
• The harder the wood, the more you can guarantee it will crack. Pine and Firs are soft, everything else is mostly hard and you’ll 100% have to pre-drill.