Hiding screw holes

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phil58490
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Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2012 1:23 pm
Location: Kellow, Looe, Cornwall

Hiding screw holes

Post by phil58490 »

I have a beautiful light coloured wooden thwart on my new to me Solo but sadly it has a number of fittings screwed to it that are either redundant or in the wrong place. I would like to remove them and hide the fact that they were there in the best way possible. The fittings are surface mounted using 4mm screws into the timber.

My thoughts are to clean up the holes with a 4mm drill, slightly countersink to get rid of the slight surface ridge caused by the screws and fill with wood dust and epoxy mix.

My question is there a better way as I have never seen a plug cutter small enough.
Just across the Tamar in South East Cornwall

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Ed
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Re: Hiding screw holes

Post by Ed »

You can make your own plugs easy enough...

just get a bit of metal tube of the right size, even brass will do, although most aluminium seems too week....Stainless is perfect, and use a triangle modeling file to cut a tooth pattern around the top.

You can then put it in a drill and cut some plugs of your own.

I use tubes like this to take out dead brass screws and then insert wood into hole, before inserting new screw, but have noticed you can make very nice little plugs too.

cheers

eib
Ed Bremner
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Rupert
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Re: Hiding screw holes

Post by Rupert »

As small as 4mm, Ed? I'd have thought there wouldn't be enough grain strength for them to hold together while being handled. Happy to be wrong, though...
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Ed
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Re: Hiding screw holes

Post by Ed »

Depends on the wood, I reckon....

but yes, think you can do 4mm in a decent hard close grain mahogany or oak.

3mm would be harder

And agree they are fragile, but if they are only decorative, you only need 3 or 4 mm of depth.

When I have done it to repair removed screws, I have simple cut a small piece of dowelling and hammered this into the hole. Agreed the new screw is now holding on the grain rather than against, but I havn't had any issues yet.

eib
Ed Bremner
CVRDA


Jollyboat J3
Firefly F2942
IC GBR314 ex S51 - 1970 Slurp
MR 638 - Please come and take it away
Phelps Scull
Bathurst Whiff - looking for someone to love it
phil58490
Posts: 203
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2012 1:23 pm
Location: Kellow, Looe, Cornwall

Re: Hiding screw holes

Post by phil58490 »

I am playing with this idea of making a cutter, 4mm seems to work ok on hardwood. I am trying to improve my cutter before I try it on the light coloured wood as I have only got a small piece that I think will be the correct colour when epoxied and varnished. I am also going to try to get the plug size down to 3mm as it is only the thread on the screw that is 4mm, the core is 3mm. I will let you know how I get on.

Edited to add, well it was looking ok on a piece of really hardwood (old oak) as long as you only wanted a short plug. I then tried it on a softer wood and ended up with a plug of dust across the grain but it works fine along the grain. If you try for a long plug (10mm plus) you end up with a twisted plug. So not a complete failure but not perfect. Work in progress on making a much sharper and thinner cutting edge to the teeth to make it cut rather than tear out the grain.
Just across the Tamar in South East Cornwall

Solo 4928
Solo 3406
Hit 5 Sold
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