Expert: Eileen Cronk - 8/6/2008

Question
QUESTION: The screws on the door hinge of my wardrobe cabinet have pulled out. This is an IKEA product (pressed wood or whatever), but I hope you can help me. The hardware store reccommended that I insert a small wooden dowel and then rescrew. I started to do this, but I don't think it is going to work because a) the door is heavy/large and if I screw into the dowel, I'm afraid the whole dowel will just pull out of the hole and b) the holes for the screws are now a bit large/nonregular, making it difficult to find a dowel that will fit really closely. WHen I first assembled the wardrobe, the hinges/screws utilized a plastic insert type thing that the screw went through. Not sure if I need these--they are broken now. Can you recommend a repair? WOuld wood filler make sense here? Ideally would like something that would allow me to take the doors off the wardrobe when moving. THanks for your suggestion!

ANSWER: Hi Patty
Nice to hear from you.
This type of material is hard to fix and a dowel most definitely won't work unless it was one about and inch around that was cut to go through the entire thickness of the pressed board.
Of course you would need to drill an inch wide hole through the area and glue the dowel firmly in.
Then you need to carefully drill your screw hole into the dowel.
This will work.
I suppose a 3/4 inch dowel would work too.
If you had the proper bits you could drill the dowel hole to within a fraction of almost going through the entire board.
That way it would not show on the exposed side.
I hope you understand this concept.
Don't try to find a dowel to fit into that tiny hole.
As you are thinking it will not support a screw.
You must drill a new larger hole and get a dowel to fit that.
Wood filler is not an option and you do not need to find those plastic things...forget them.
And taking the doors off this unit is a good idea.
It will relieve the stress.
This repair will allow you to do that.
This is a very easy repair with the right tools so if you don't have them get a handy friend to help.
Good luck and great question
Regards
Eileen


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you so much! Let be sure I have this right: drill a 3/4 to 1 inch hole, insert/glue dowel of same size, then screw into that.

Followup question: there are 2 screws and thus 2 small holes that will need to be drilled. If I center my new larger holes over the old holes, the 2 holes will overlap. That won't work. So, I will have to drill the new holes off-center from the small/orig holes so that the two new, larger holes do not overlap. The screw will then not go into the middle of the dowel, but rather towards the edge. Will that still work?

It would be REALLY nice if there was some type of filler that I could use! Can you briefly say why wood filler is not an option?

Thanks again!

Answer
Hi Again Patty
Yes you have the drill/ glue dowel part correct.
And yes it will work if the screws are offset from the center of the dowel.
I know it would be nice if wood filler would work but there is no strength in it to hold a screw. It will simply fall apart.
Try a sample on scrap wood and you will see what I mean.
Very good luck with the repair
Regards
Eileen