Stripped Screw Fix: Toothpicks and Glue
The repair your contractor friend knows and never thinks to mention — four toothpicks and it's done.
If you have a screw that spins uselessly in its hole no matter how hard you tighten it, you already know the particular frustration of a stripped screw hole — the hinge that won't catch, the cabinet door that sags, the curtain rod bracket that pulls away from the wall the moment any weight goes on it. The fix that every experienced carpenter knows and somehow never gets passed along is so simple it sounds like a joke until you try it: toothpicks and wood glue. Four toothpicks packed into a glue-filled hole, left to cure for an hour, and trimmed flush give the screw completely fresh wood fiber to bite into — and the repaired hole is genuinely stronger than the original. This works on cabinet hinges, door hardware, furniture joints, curtain brackets, and anywhere else a screw has lost its grip in wood. The materials cost pennies, the repair takes ten minutes of actual work, and once you know this trick you will use it in every room of your house.
What You'll Need
- Wooden toothpicks — standard round or flat; you'll use 3–6 per hole depending on size (a box costs under $2 and fixes dozens of holes)
- Wood glue — Titebond Original or any PVA wood glue; do not substitute super glue or construction adhesive, which don't bond wood fiber the same way
- Screwdriver or drill — for removing the hardware before repair and driving the screw back in after
- Utility knife, chisel, or flush-cut saw — for trimming toothpicks flush with the wood surface after curing
- Sandpaper, 120-grit — optional, for smoothing any remaining toothpick stub before reattaching hardware
- Toothpick or scrap wire — for working glue down into the hole before packing
- Damp rag — for wiping glue squeeze-out from the wood surface before it cures
How to Fix It
- Remove the hardware completely — unscrew the hinge, bracket, or fitting and set it aside. Trying to work glue into a hole with hardware still partially attached is the main reason this repair gets done sloppily; clear access to the hole is what makes the difference between a clean fix and a messy one.
- Clean the hole by blowing out any loose wood dust or debris — compressed air works best, but a few firm puffs of breath do the job. Glue bonds poorly to dusty surfaces, and a stripped hole often has a lot of loose fiber sitting at the bottom that needs to be cleared before you start.
- Apply wood glue into the hole using the tip of a toothpick or a thin wire to work it down to the bottom and coat the sides — you want glue contact with as much of the hole surface as possible, not just a drop sitting at the top. Use enough to see it in the hole but not so much that it immediately overflows before the toothpicks go in.
- Pack toothpicks into the glue-filled hole, pushing them in firmly one at a time until the hole is snugly full and will not accept another — typically 3–6 toothpicks depending on hole diameter. The toothpicks should feel tight and resist being pushed in rather than sliding freely; snug packing is what creates the solid wood mass the screw will thread into.
- Wipe any glue squeeze-out from the surrounding wood surface immediately with a damp rag — dried PVA glue on a painted or stained surface requires sanding to remove and leaves a visible patch under painted finishes.
- Cure for a full hour without disturbing the repair — this is the step most people shorten and regret. Wood glue needs the complete cure time to bond the toothpick fibers into a solid mass; driving the screw back in at 20 minutes means driving it into glue that hasn't set, which compresses rather than grips.
- Trim the toothpicks flush with the wood surface using a utility knife, chisel, or flush-cut saw — score around the base of the protruding toothpick cluster and snap cleanly, then pare any remaining stub flat. Sand lightly with 120-grit if needed so the hardware will sit completely flat against the surface.
- Drive the original screw back into the repaired hole slowly using moderate pressure — you will feel it biting into fresh material almost immediately, which is the confirmation the repair has worked. Do not overdrive; the goal is firm and snug, not stripped again on the first installation.
Finish carpenters and cabinet installers who work with production-built cabinetry — where particle board and MDF cores strip out faster than solid wood — use one refinement that makes the toothpick repair hold longer under heavy-use hardware like frequently opened cabinet doors: apply a small drop of thin cyanoacrylate (super glue) over the fully cured wood glue repair before driving the screw. The CA glue wicks into any remaining micro-gaps between the toothpick fibers and the hole wall by capillary action and cures rigid within 60 seconds, creating a hybrid bond that combines the wood-fiber grip of PVA with the gap-filling hardness of CA. This two-glue technique is standard practice on high-cycle hardware installations and is the reason a professional cabinet repair holds for years while a rushed single-glue fix sometimes strips again within months.
