How to cover up pocket or screw holes

Browse through some of our home improvement and home DIY projects and you will see that we love to use the pockethole jig for joining. Not only does a pockethole jig creates strong joints, it also allows you to hide the holes on the inside - or underneath - so that joints are out of sight.

 

However, if you want joints that are completely invisible you need to be able to fill in the holes and, because of their size and shape, this can be tricky.

There is a way to finish off pocketholes neatly and so they are almost invisble. The trick is to use the right diameter dowels to fill in pocketholes. Although the pic above shows pre-cut lengths of dowels being inserted into pocketholes, I find it easier to cut them to a longer length to glue into the holes and once the glue has dried I use a saw knife to angle cut them and remove. Until pockethole plugs are available here in South Africa, this method works very well and you can stain or paint the dowels to match the wood for an invisible joint.

While on the subject of dowels, these are also perfect for hiding screw holes in timber. I cut my dowels to the right length for the hole depth and then use a sander to remove any excess rather than cut off and risk scratching the surface of my project. Again, the dowels can be stained to match the wood species that you are using.

If you need to cover up screws and screw holes in timber, you can purchase plastic screw caps or covers. These small plastic caps come in a limited selection of basic colours and are popped into the screw head. I do advise that you also add a small blob of contact adhesive to the screw head and screw caps, as they have a tendency to come loose.

Self-adhesive screw caps or covers are thin laminate caps with a sticky back that are simply peeled off the backing sheet and stuck over the screw hole. These caps come in a wide selection of colours and wood styles, so that you can easily match to a painted or wood finish. So far I have only seen self-adhesive caps at Gelmar (www.gelmar.co.za).