Stripped screws can be one of the most frustrating kinks in a home improvement project, even after you get it out. If you want to use that hole again, you can make sure your screw stays put with a few toothpicks.We've shown you how to
remove a stripped screw with a rubber band, but once you get it out, that hole may not be suitable for another screw, since it'll be too loose. A
golf tee will help you get a new screw in, but that doesn't give you a lot of versatility when it comes to the size of the hole. A better method, weblog Apartment Therapy notes, is to just use a few toothpicks:
Taking my father's advice, I unscrewed the hinge and placed a few pieces of toothpick in the screw hole. As I reinstalled the screw, I could feel that the toothpick pieces were doing their job. Basically the screw is able to grip onto the soft wood of the toothpick pieces, which creates a tight fit that couldn't be achieved in the stretched and stripped hole.
Because toothpicks are fairly small, they can help fix holes of any size—you just need to make sure you have enough toothpicks if it's a bigger hole.
Comments
Toothpicks to have their uses however - if you have had wood worm treated, you will be left with worm holes in the timber - left as they are, they can cause problems on future surveys for selling your house or insurance. Ram a toothpick into each hole, take it down with a chisel and sand it to blend with the original timber - careful on the sanding tho, a lot of structuract timbers are quite rough rather than PAR / PSE.