The best results I had was from a VERY sharp chisel. Hold it so that the small angled part is flush against the deck (so the chisel is roughly at a 45 degree angle), and give it one good hit with a hammer. Obviously hit it with the grain direction. After that I sanded the whole deck woth a ROS. It did not take very long at all (about 2 hours total for all surfaces). I had a lot of the "hairs" on the boards (those tiny rough feeling 'splinters'), so a quick once over did the trick of smoothing them out, and sanding the plugs. It came out awesome. TWP116 as a final finish.

Good Luck!

I just use the orbital with 60 grit pads. John

George,
I make full sized plugs, so I can't just sand them away like John does. I do what Nuttybolts does. I take my super sharp chisel, bevel down, and tap it with a mallet...with the grain. some folks saw off the top, but that's time consuming. I don't try to clean it flush with the chisel...I let my ROS do that, with 50 grit.

I haven't plugged a deck in a while. I got into the headcote SS trimscrews and the Smartbit countersink. Not too noticable, and much easier on my knees.

steve