Need repair advice

[Steve Hitsman]

My steel has been set up on stage at the theater where we'll be presenting a run of Always... Patsy Cline. Apparently, a banquet of some sort was being held a couple of evenings ago at the same facility. Some delinquents from that event managed to wonder into the theater and amused themselves with our instruments. Along with the general mayhem they perpetrated, they pulled the RKR loose from my Emmons. I need suggestions on how best to deal with the stripped out screw holes to remount the lever bracket. Will wood filler work? Epoxy? I'm thinking someone has dealt with this situation before.

[John Hyland]

Sorry to hear
Best method to fixed striped timber screw is not filler but a small diam dowel glued and hammer tapped in a drill hole just larger than the left over hole. Get the hole depth slightly longer than the dowel length right and you will get flush fit without sanding or chiselling.

[Larry Jamieson]

If it is a fairly small diameter hole, you can break off a tooth pick to the right length, put some glue on it, insert it into the hole, then replace the screw.

[Steve Hitsman]

Thanks guys. I think the dowel solution sounds about right. The holes are probably too large for the tooth pick trick. I’ll post later how it goes.
That kid is lucky I can’t get my hands on him.

[Ian Worley]

Bamboo BBQ skewers work well for this, they're hard and about 1/8" diameter, perfect for filling a #8 screw hole

[Steve Hitsman]

I ended up boring 3/8" holes and cut oak dowel to fit, glued them in, drilled pilot holes, and remounted the lever bracket with #8 wood screws... seems to have worked.