Shop fixtures and jigs often require the installation of various clamping or adjustment knobs. That’s when you’ll reach for woodworking inserts.
Use woodworking inserts in softer woods and plywood where their coarse outside threads cut easily into the surrounding wood. Simply drill a hole sized for the body of the woodworking inserts, and screw it into place. In very hard woods, such as white oak and maple, or when the woodworking inserts is close to the edge of a part and screwing it in may split the wood, drill a hole slightly larger than the outside thread diameter, and epoxy the woodworking inserts in place. To protect the internal threads from epoxy, cover the end of the woodworking inserts, as shown below.
Press-in woodworking insertss, with their barbed exteriors, work well in hard woods, soft woods, and plywood. Drill a hole sized for the body of the woodworking inserts, and press it into place with a clamp or tap it in with a hammer and a block of wood. For applications in which the clamping action tends to pull the woodworking inserts out of the wood, such as the knobs that tighten down on a drill-press fence extension, drill a hole that engages just the tips of the woodworking inserts barbs and epoxy it in place.
This article comes from woodmagazine edit released