Hadn’t checked this thread in a while because I had a good run of setups with rails installed effectively, no rattle, no issues getting yanked out etc. Madness defeated!
Then I set up a new board with some Pig rails that have really been pissing me off. Not my first time using Pigs but definitely my worst experience so far.
Here’s where I went wrong, so you all can learn from my mistakes.
1. I usually drill a tiny starter hole before putting the screws in. This time I skipped that, and went straight for the screwing. I used a drill. Screws went like 2/3 of the way in and then started stripping like hell. Screw heads still weren’t flush even with the rail so I new they would get fucked up really quickly if I tried to skate em.
2. I put a tiny strip of tape under the rails to hold em in place, which is a new move for me. It succeeded in holding the rails in place while I put the screws in, which is nice because it removes some guesswork on positioning. Rials don’t slide around while you work on em, etc. This is probably fine to do and I might do it again in the future. But I would probably still drill starter holes anyway. And in the past I’ve used glue. It requires letting it dry a bit but I think it might be my preferred method.
3. I went and bought #6 wood screws 1/2” long, to replace the shitty Pig screws.
4. Removed old screws, and filled in holes with wood glue so that hopefully I could re-use the holes
5. Replaced old screws with the new ones. They went down flush very easily. Did it by hand to avoid stripping em out again. No drill this time. Unfortunately one or two of the holes were still too big or not glued enough or SOMETHING because the new screws still didn’t quite grip enough to get the rail on super tight.
So in conclusion 3 of the 4 screws on each rail are in nice and solid, 1 of the screws on each rail is a bit fucked. Maybe if I had used slightly thicker screws it would have worked better. In the future I’m just gonna try to buy rails that actually come with decent screws in the first place. And drill the starter holes. And screw the rails in by hand after that.
So now I’m just gonna cut my losses and start skating the thing now because I’m annoyed by fucking around with it. If the rails come out I’ll just shift the rails over half an inch or so and start over with new holes.