Stripped Threads in Wood

Stripped Threads in Wood

We’ve all seen it happen, you go to tighten a screw and it just spins free not grabbing the wood at all. There is a way to fix that.

First remove the screw and whatever it is mounting. Then you can take any piece of wood roughly the same diameter as the hole and drive it into the hole. The harder the wood, the less tight it needs to be in the hole because you are going to put a screw back in there too. Drive it in until it won’t go further, then break or cut off any that is protruding from the hole.

The size of the hole determines what you use to plug it. Very small holes can be filled with toothpicks or kitchen match sticks. An ideal filler for #10 or #12 screw holes is a golf tee. Just drive it in and then break the head off. Once the hole has been filled, just replace whatever is mounted by the screw and turn the screw into place. If you’ve plugged the hole too tightly you may need to put a little lubricant on the screw before it can be turned into place.