Carpentry and Woodworking - Stripped screw holes

The hinge screw holes in one of our door frames are totally stripped and will not hold the hinge screws.
What's the best fix for this?
Toothpicks and glue?
Toothpicks and some kind of epoxy?
A better suggestion?
Rich

I've often packed wood filler in the holes in my cabinets and it's holding up great.

One of the things that I have used is gluing in a wooden golf tee. Let the glue dry and cut off the excess tee with a sharp chisel and redrill the hole and insert the screw.

I use toothpicks, matchsticks, splinters. With ordinary wood glue. Just keep tapping more in until nothing will. The round sharpened toothpicks really pack.

You can also use screws long enough to bite the stud.

Hey:

I have used Water Putty for this and other fixes many times. I like it because it dries hard as a rock.. If you do use it, make sure you drill a pilot hole before trying to insert your screws.
Hope this helps and please let us know what you did to solve the problem.
Take care
Dan

I like to use tees because I always have a bunch in different lengths. I use yellow carpenters glue.

After you repair the stripped holes, consider using longer hinge screws that will reach the door framing. Most hinge screws are short and only reach the jamb.

Thanks to everyone.
I did manage to find screws long enough to bite into the stud.
Now it's nice and solid again.
Lucky I keep a lot of junk around, because it's next to impossible to find hardware to match up to 50 yr old antique brass.
Rich

Like some already posted, I prefer wooden golf tees. Since they're shaped like a nail they're easily tapped into the holes. Instead of wood glue I like to use a quick setting epoxy, it seems to fill any voids around the tee without flowing back out of the hole around the tee. Regular wood glue is more likely to "run" or drip if the hole has been stripped out to a diameter larger than the tee's. Plus, a 3-5 minute epoxy provides plenty of time for such a simple fix; and you'll be re-installing the hinges much sooner.

Using a filler/putty/etc. is great for many repairs, but there's been so many times I've started a lockset replacement only to find that the strike-plates and other hardware are screwed into a crumbly/soft chunk of filler stuffed into a hole in the jamb or door. My 10 minute chore just turned into 30+ minutes. :wall: This isn't a big deal, especially for DIY folks at home patching interior doors; but, if you've got a few tools like a chisel and a table saw/miter saw, just chisel out the hole so it's square, cut a small piece of wood to fit the new hole and fasten/glue it in. It's an easy fix, and it'll be so much stronger and lasting. What good is a lock on an exterior door if the bolt is being held in place by material only slightly more substantial than drywall?

No offense to you guys that mentioned using fillers/putty; that was just me on one of my soapboxes. :p My frustration wasn't directed at you, it's the hacks that charge people for "fixing" these problems when they're really only hiding them.

It's just so aggravating when you start to remove a beat-up, painted-over strike-plate/hinge/etc. and the thing falls off followed by something that looks like strangely colored dirt before you even get all the screws out. Or you start the chisel-work for the new hardware and out pops a chunk of bondo or something...

Phew. *Jeffrey wipes sweat from forehead.* I feel a little better now. :D

Happy Woodworking!

Jeffrey

Jeff,
That is great advice. Before long I will have to fix a lot of stripped holes for the shutters on our attic fan.
Every fall I remove the shutters and pack in a multi layer of blue foam, to keep the heat from escaping into the attic.
But after doing this for many years many of the screw holes are stripped and longer screws are no longer an option because I used the longest ones I could find in that particular size.
Rich