Repairing Screw Holes

[Flyfisher]

Are there any tips 'n' tricks for repairing the holes in doors where the hinges have been fitted? We have a few cottage-style doors and the screws are no longer really gripping the wood. Larger screws don't seem an option (they are only half-inch and already look like size 12) so I'm thinking of just filling the holes with wood filler and drilling a pilot hole when hardened . . . . unless any experts out there know a better way?

 

[Flyfisher]

Found this list of tips: http://www.wikihow.com/Repair-a-Loose-Wood-Screw-Hole-for-a-Hinge

I think I'll try drilling out the holes and gluing in a dowel.

 

[middi]

If longer screws is not an option, ( usually when the hinge face is screwed onto thin cottage door planks) , the easiest and most secure way is to move the complete hinge by 10mm or so up or down, then fill old holes if showing.

If you wish to dowel ( in situations as above) you must be accurate with drilling diameter and depth, pre drill the dowel to accept the appropriate hinge screw, this will allow excess glue and air to squeze out of the centre.

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, longer screws are not an option due to the door planks.

In the end I used cocktail sticks instead of dowels and only inserted them into 3 of the 5 holes for each hinge. Very easy to coat with wood glue, tap in with a hammer and cut off flush with some side cutters. I left 2 of the holes so that I can re-fit the door (the screws do grip a little bit) and then use the hinge holes to centre a pilot hole for the filled holes when the wood glue has properly set overnight.

I hope cocktail sticks don't come under the heading of a bodge!

 

[Penners]

Drilling and dowelling is a perfectly satisfactory plan, but its only slight downside is that you end up driving a screw into the end-grain of the dowel. This is never as satisfactory as screwing into long-grain.

A slightly better technique, therefore, is to drill out the ripped screw hole and glue in a plug, rather than a dowel. Plugs can be cut out of long-grain using a plug cutter (here's an example http://www.axminster.co.uk/product-Disston-Plug-Cutters-with-Hex-Shanks-463050.htm).

Incidentally, if you want to hide an old screw-hole cosmetically, plugs can be very effective. Cut the plug out of a piece of wood that is similar in both colour and grain structure to the original, and be careful to align the grain when you glue it into your drilled-out screwhole. You can repair the wood almost invisibly with this technique.

 

[Penners]

I hope cocktail sticks don't come under the heading of a bodge!

Oh yes they do. Pole-lathe experts spend weeks on end turning up cocktail sticks out of branches cut from pollarded trees. It's a skill that dates back to the invention of the cocktail sausage.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Are you sure the sausage came first Penners?

It may well have been an enterprising butcher he saw a gap in the market for small quantities of left-over sausage meat, when he moved next door to a bodger.

 

[Penners]

I think the whole idea of food-on-a-stick is quite underdeveloped in this country. There are lots of new possibilities...

 

[FamilyWiggs]

That's just a very small octupus very close up isn't it?

Clearly Minnesota is the place to go for food-on-a-stick:

http://haikucomic.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/minnesota-state-fair-motto/

 

[Penners]

D'you know, I think you're right. It's an octopus.

I thought it was a toffee apple that had gone badly wrong.

 

[u102363]

I usually find that putting a matchstick in the hole (non-coated end!), then breaking if off flush with the front of the hole, seems to give any self-tapping screw a good grip. Put two in if it's a big hole.

Maybe it's a bodge, but it's certainly worth trying before anything more radical!!

OB.

 

[Moo]

My grandad always did that. Mind you - he called himself Bill the Bodger.

 

[Flyfisher]

Well, the glued cocktail sticks seemed to have worked well and the screws are now gripping firmly.

Good point about the grain of dowels-vs-plugs Penners, I'll add those plug-cutters to my shopping list. Unfortunately* I've just received the new Axminster catalogue so it's a timely suggestion.


*'unfortunate' as it can be an expensive business reading through their catalogue!

 

[Penners]

I quite agree, FF. My heart always sinks when the new Axminster catalogue arrives, because I know it's going to cost me money.

A bit like those signs that appear in the local town centre from time to time, saying "Tool Sale".

 

[Feltwell]

More for use in brick/plaster than wood, but on a similar topic, if you've a wall plug in plaster or brick where the hole has become too large for the plug and it won't grip, then these are fantastic:-

http://screwfix.com/prods/77888/Fixings/Wall-Plugs/Fischer-Wet-N-Fix-Pack-of-50

It's disc made of mesh with a quick setting plaster on it. You wet it, wrap it around the rawlplug and put it back in the hole, 3 minutes later you can put the screw in. I've used them a lot to repair various fittings in my house that were loose, they work really well.

Much better than the traditional bodge (sorry Penners! Can't think of a better word...) of shoving a couple of matchsticks down the side of the hole before putting the wall plug in! Mind you, I've done that a few times in the past and it always held.......

 

[Penners]

Much better than the traditional bodge ...of shoving a couple of matchsticks down the side of the hole before putting the wall plug in!

Actually, Feltwell, if you have an oversize hole in masonry, the best solution is the traditional one that was used before rawlplugs/plastic plugs came on the scene.

Cut yourself a softwood peg a little fatter than the diameter of the hole in the masonry, and then hammer it in really hard. Cut off any proud surplus and you'll have a really strong fixing for driving screws into.

 

[Gervase]

Absolutely. I use that technique for fixing skirting boards and picture rails and it's simple and foolproof - particularly with random stonework, where a small neat hole can rapidly become a large, irregular hole.

 

[Feltwell]

For random stonework I can most definitely see the point of that - but for brick, plastic plugs score high on convenience, if low on tradition, but then again so do pozi-head screws which I bet most of us use for hidden applications! I take the point on softwood pegs for oversize holes though, it is a method I have used in the past, but the Fischer pads are so quick & convenient I tend to use those now where I can.

Of course even better is just not to end up with the oversize hole in the first place.....

 

[skier-hughes]

Of course even better is just not to end up with the oversize hole in the first place.....

Go on then, tell us how :wink:

 

[Gervase]

Go on then, tell us how :wink:

By living in a brick house, of course! :wink: