CMT Enlock Joining System

[cgallery]

I saw this at Woodcraft's site:

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx...ode=items#tabs

An alternative to pocket screws for face frames, which I've honestly never had much luck with (alignment-wise).

I'm happy with my current router-table biscuit jointing method. But still thought this was interesting. Quite frankly, any new system for joining wood fascinates me.

[dewi1219]

I like it. It may be more tedious than pocket screws since you have to machine both pieces, but it certainly looks better. I wonder if you could use/modify a regular dovetail jig to do this?

[jonmulzer]

$14.99 for 50 dovetail keys? You could buy 500 pocket screws for that much! It is also slower, noisier, more dangerous and I seriously doubt it is as strong as pocket screws. Plus it is $180 on sale for the jig and soon to go up to $230. I am certainly for variety and innovation but I really do think this one is going to be a swing and a miss.

[just started]

And the thingies are PLASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!! I will stick to pocket screws, dowels or biscuits.

[jon_ramp]

$14.99 for 50 dovetail keys? You could buy 500 pocket screws for that much! It is also slower, noisier, more dangerous and I seriously doubt it is as strong as pocket screws. Plus it is $180 on sale for the jig and soon to go up to $230. I am certainly for variety and innovation but I really do think this one is going to be a swing and a miss.

Once again, another joinery system that makes the price and ease of set-up of the DowelMax seem reasonable. I've held off for some time now trying to decide and more and more I'm thinking of going DowelMax vs biscuit and/or pocket screws.

[jhart]

Tom Silva of TOH used something like that on one of their shows. Looked pretty slick when he used it. Haven't seen it since.

[Popeye]

I think I'll stick with pocket screws for the time being. At least with those if you have a joint that may be seen you can disquise it with dowel plugs. And it looks to be a lot faster. Pat

[Holbren]

That reminds me of the Hoffman system.

http://www.hoffmann-usa.com/htm/keys/intro-keys.htm

[tribalwind]

And the thingies are PLASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!! I will stick to pocket screws, dowels or biscuits.

ditto, the 'plastic thingies' are very cheesy. looks like walmart furniture joinery lol..
i would dowel or pocket those type joints.

easier,faster,cheaper, and Definitely better looking
the hoffman thing was almost equally as cheesy imho..

thanks for posting it though! always love seeing the new things out there

[LarryG]

An alternative to pocket screws for face frames, which I've honestly never had much luck with (alignment-wise).

As something of an aside, here's the setup I use when driving pocket hole screws:



I developed this approach when I realized, very early on, that the face clamp Kreg supplies just doesn't get the job done. The parallel body clamp cinches the two pieces down onto a corner of my assembly table with authority, ensuring perfect alignment of their faces. This is poplar, into which the screws drive fairly easily. If I'm using a denser wood, I add a second K-Body laid flat so it pulls the workpieces together, to counteract the screw's attempt to spread the two pieces apart. (Actually I'll often use the second clamp even with poplar ... I did that just this past weekend.)

[drumpriest]

Interesting Larry, I usually clamp the pieces as though gluing them together, but dry, and use the face clamp just to align them, your way would work great though, I'll have to keep that in mind.

[cgallery]

Interesting Larry, I usually clamp the pieces as though gluing them together, but dry, and use the face clamp just to align them, your way would work great though, I'll have to keep that in mind.

I agree, this is very clever. The Kreg clamp has been a disappointment to me. If one out of four of your joints comes out a little missaligned, then each face frame will gave one poor joint.

[subfuel1]

Pocket face alignment issues.

I have been using pocket holes for joining face frames for quite some time
now. I had the same alignment issues. I found out from Kreg that clamping
pressure should be mainly on the piece that did not have pocket hole, use a drill with a clutch set to just tighten the screw( the clutch action acts as a milder form of impact driver) and most importantly the coarse screws are for
Pine and sheet goods almost always. Fine screws for everything else.Even Alder and Cherry.

[drumpriest]

Larry, that's exactly how I do frames with pocket screws! Thanks for that tip! Now a days I tend to use domino joinery. I used to do double dowel though, and it worked great! Just time consuming, and now that the doweling machines are built like the domino, those might be worth considering.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=97427

or the expensive version.

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?p...l&cookietest=1

I wonder how the HF version performs. These are both interesting, the domino is out of many people's price range at 750$ or so, but it really is a nice tool to have if you build a lot of stuff.