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Hot take: a guy in Tulsa showed me I was hanging shelves all wrong
I was helping my sister hang shelves in her garage in Tulsa when her neighbor walked over and asked why I was drilling pilot holes so small. He grabbed a scrap of 2x4 and showed me how a slightly bigger bit keeps the wood from splitting on the ends. I tried it on the next shelf and not one crack, compared to three splits on the first one. Now I keep a little chart of bit sizes taped inside my toolbox lid. What bit size do you all use for pine versus oak?
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oliviabutler17d ago
My grandpa taught me to use a 1/16 bit for pretty much everything and I did it that way for years without questioning it. Then I split the ends on a whole set of pine shelves in my own garage last summer, four boards ruined, and finally looked up what I was doing wrong. Turns out pine wants a bit closer to the size of the screw shank, so a 3/32 or 7/64 works way better, and I was just chewing up the wood with that tiny bit. For oak I go a hair bigger, like 1/8, because that stuff is so dense it splits if you look at it wrong. I always thought bigger bits just made loose holes that wouldn't hold, but that Tulsa guy and my own wrecked shelves proved me wrong. That chart taped in your lid is a smart move, I scribbled mine on a piece of tape too.
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