Stripped neck screw hole on Fender Stratocaster

Grangousier

This is probably a stupid question, but... the back legs of our cheap IKEA sofa collapsed the other day (I was moving it around to make space to get a washing machine past) - the holes have worn out where they attach to the leg by a long screw. D'ye think the wet glue/toothpick method would work on them? 

ICBM

Grangousier said:

This is probably a stupid question, but... the back legs of our cheap IKEA sofa collapsed the other day (I was moving it around to make space to get a washing machine past) - the holes have worn out where they attach to the leg by a long screw. D'ye think the wet glue/toothpick method would work on them? 

Yes, probably. Although if it's just in a hidden area of a piece of furniture I'd be inclined to drill right through and fit bolts with a big washer or a T-nut on the inside.

Disturbingly, I have seen that done on a guitar! I will leave it to your imagination...

Grangousier

Ah, that sound like more than I'm capable of, with the washer. I reckon I can probably do cocktail sticks, though. I'll give it a try. If the worst comes to the worst, it will only be as broken as it is at the moment anyway. Thanks!

crunchman

@ICBM with the wet glue method, do you ever have problems with the glue squeezing out, and making the neck difficult to get off in the future?

ICBM

crunchman said:

@ICBM with the wet glue method, do you ever have problems with the glue squeezing out, and making the neck difficult to get off in the future?

No, I've never found that. If you really pack the hole as tightly as possible with toothpicks and clean up, there won't actually be that much glue - some will squeeze out, but it won't be anywhere near enough to cause a problem - it won't stick to the finish on the neck anyway, even if the body pocket is unfinished.

Stratovarious

What about if you're fitting a neck from one body onto another, and the holes are in different places? What's the procedure there? (I've always used dowels in the past.)

WezV

The dowels will fill the hole, but they are not adding anything.   It won't be any stronger than having 2 sets of  holes close to each other    

If the holes are 5mm or more apart then this is fine (this only normally happens when mixing things that don't normally go together)

If they are close, I would plug, not dowel

Also, when talking about plugs, I mean straight ones that go the full depth of the hole... not tapered plugs, which are mostly cosmetic