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A Better Alternative to the Kreg Pocket Hole Jig? The Castle 110 Pocket Cutter
Low-angle, and the pilot hole is drilled from the other side
With distribution through both Home Depot and Lowes, Kreg's series of pocket hole jigs can seem like the only game in town. Using one is simple, once you've got the stops set up correctly, and is pretty quick--but requires a little clean-up work. After drilling the holes, you typically need to take a pass with a sharp chisel over the "exit wound" of the holes, which typically contain enough blow-out to mess with your joint.
Competing manufacturer Castle reckons they've designed a better machine with their Castle 110 Pocket Cutter. Their benchtop rig is roughly the size of a large blender, and uses a router on a pivot to cut the pocket; the pilot hole is then manually drilled by the user through a bushing, and notably, it's drilled from the contact end of the joint. Drilling it from this side produces no blow-out.
Also, the angle on the Castle holes is lot lower, at just 3 degrees (versus the Kreg jig's ~15 degrees).
Here it is in action:
Enter a caption (optional)
On the one hand, I can see users balking at the increased production time of Castle's two-step operation. However, once you factor in the chisel clean-up step required with the Kreg, you could argue that's a two-step operation as well.
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Comments
Meh. Buy a Lamello if you're doing production work.
The main question - which they completely ignore- is: which creates a stronger bond?
Believe that if set up properly the drill stops short of going right through the wood thus no clean up is required
It cracks me up when people compare stuff like this....... How are you going to compare a $40.00 Kreg Pocket Jig and then call the Castle brand superior at $400.00.
I never had this problem of needing to clean off with a chisel. Maybe you don’t have it set up right. Or maybe you’re just trying to make Kreg sound worse than it is!!
As a home DIYer I can't justify the additional cost of the Castle 110. For the amount of pocket screws that I use there's no was it's worth nearly 6 times as much. It would be a nice consideration for production work but my money would better spent on another bench top tool.