Hot take: That guy at the lumber yard was right about pre-drilling

Was grabbing plywood for a shed last Saturday and heard this older builder tell a kid he was wasting time pre-drilling every screw. Said he's done 50 decks without it and never had a split. I tried skipping it on a fence repair last week and split three boards with just 8 screws. Has anyone else found that pre-drilling is more situational than people make it sound?

3 comments

3 Comments

coleman.hannah5d ago

Did you try shaving the screw tip too? That helps sometimes.

joseph_green136d ago

...and that older builder is full of it, or he got lucky with the wood he used. I've been building stuff for years and I split boards all the time if I skip pre-drilling. It's not about being slow or wasting time, it's about not ruining your material. Especially near the ends of a board or with hardwoods, you're asking for trouble if you just send it. Framing guns are different, they don't have that same twisting force, but regular screws? Yeah, you need to drill for the good stuff.

milalewis5d ago

Exactly. @coleman.hannah mentioned shaving the screw tip and that's a good trick but it only goes so far. I've snapped off a bunch of those self-drilling screws in oak. They just twist clean off. Pre-drilling with a countersink bit is the only way I get clean results on anything harder than pine. Especially on the last inch of a board, that's where it always goes wrong for me too.