Getting Jiggy With It

Hello, strangers!!!  Yes, I know it's been months since I've posted anything, but... that's life these days.

On to the reason I've revived this beast....

I shall be building some cabinets (both for ourselves, in the new house our landlord is building, and for him to put in the other two new houses he's building) and hope to continue building things for money and all that, and ... anyway, I got a new toy.  It's called a Pocket Screw Jig, and it's used for building frames (cabinet fronts and doors, pictures, &etc.) fast and with a clean front (no nails/screws/dowel pins visible).

So easy to use, just position the jig, clamp it down and drill (using the specialty "step bit" that comes with the jig).  You then insert screws in the resulting pockets (hence the whole "Pocket Screw" thang), tighten them down, et viola!!!  A clean, tight corner.

There's only one small problem.  The whole thing is designed to use pan head screws, which are readily available in The States, but seem to be ... not so much available here in Costa Rica.   I haven't checked with the big box hardware store EPA, but I did go to the three medium-sized places here in San Rafael, and they'd never seen such a thing.  You can see here what happens when one uses regular wood screws....

I know I can order the screws through the same place where I got the jig (Grainger Hardware Supply, which recently opened a Costa Rican location), but those would have the a) added cost of shipping from The States, b) the whole "2-3 weeks to get them in" thing, and c) they're square drive [the 'slot' in the screw head is square shaped, rather than the common Phillips or Flat], which would require a specialty screw bit/driver.

More types of screw head than you ever knew existed:

But I'll get it figgered out.