This weekend I made my first “Pocket Hole” bench. It was quite easy and used a lot less material than if I had made it without the fancy pocket holes.

I started looking for plans on how to make a work bench on the Internet. I found a few videos that weren’t too bad on giving some instructions on how to make a work bench. But then I ran across this one that was real interesting. At least I thought it was. The guy in the video was actually teaching me how to do like everything (yes I’m a real novice). Then I noticed he  said the word Kreg Jig and I thought, “Oh great this is just an infomercial, I don’t need to buy some super expensive gizmo to build a bench.” But he was interesting so I kept watching. He had some good pointers on measuring, cutting and about not worrying about making mistakes. I liked what I saw. Then he started showing the jig, which I had no desire to buy, and how easy it was to use and how it very simply created this strong joint. Oops now I think I want one of these things. So I watched the reset of the video and was convinced I need one of these cool tools to make my work bench with. To make a long story short I got one at my local Lowe’s for about $10 less than the retail price because I found an already opened returned one that was marked down. Bought my wood and hardware. Built my bench and there it is in the picture above.

The pocket holes make it really easy to join two boards together even at right angles. No fancy cutting of the wood, no extra metal brackets and no waiting for glue to dry and the joints are strong. I used just 4 1/2  2×4 and two pieces of 2×4 MDF to make this bench. It did take me two days to put it together but hey it was my first, I took my time, I didn’t want to make any mistakes. I can do it faster next time. And I will. I plan on making a few modifications to the plans to make a larger workbench with a peg board on the back. I’ll post a photo when I’m done.