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DAE stop drilling pilot holes by eye after snapping a screw in a pressure treated 4x4?
I used to eyeball pilot holes on every fence post and just send the screw home, and about a month ago on a Saturday I snapped a 3 inch deck screw flush in a 4x4 and spent 40 minutes digging it out with a chisel and Vise-Grips. Now I actually grab a bit two sizes smaller than the screw shank and run the drill slow, and the cedar panels on my back fence stopped splitting in half. What bit size do you all use on 4x4 posts, or are you running something different for cedar versus treated pine?
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rileyl9810d ago
I read somewhere that the pilot hole should match the solid part of the screw and not the threads, which makes sense since the threads are what bite into the wood. On a 4x4 I usually run a 1/8 bit for a #10 and a 5/32 for a #12, and I skip the real small bit on cedar because that stuff splits if you look at it wrong. Treated pine is a lot more forgiving, so I can get away with a snugger hole there. Learned that from a guy at the lumber yard after I wrecked a whole stack of pickets being stubborn.
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