Old thread, but thought I'd add another method - You can solidify the wood fiber with epoxy, but ideally low viscosity amine epoxy like west system, sys3 etc, not store aliphatic chemistry stuff jb weld etc, which doesn't penetrate well. JB Weld does sell a 'marine' which is amine chem' and is grey not clear.Much better to drill, plug, and redrill. Epoxy just creates future difficulty for the next repair guy.
Maple density not the greatest for this technique but probably would do fine with some existing thread holding left. Warm the neck some before so epoxy goes into warm wood, will penetrate better. I run it in on a toothpick or match stick etc and work it in good but not fill the hole per se. Very common in wood boats for hardware attaching.
You are right GabrielAround here, toothpicks are mostly maple, which is what Strat necks are made from, so that's not really the issue. They make a great short to mid term way of tightening up strap buttons. But they aren't appropriate for long term repairs, and never for neck bolts. WAY too much pressure on those neck bolts. You want a very solid, very tight, and single thread in the hole. When you put them back in, you want to be careful to catch the original thread.
And toot pick are made from too soft wood. Better to use hard wood plug.
Hole in wood (neck or furniture ) are so easy to fix, I'll never need to use over size screws on a guitar
My brand ( no name ) of toothpicks look not maple wood, look soft wood.Birch is a hardwood.
Hardwood is any broad leaf tree (i.e., it looses it's leaves at some point in the year), and softwood is any evergreen tree (i.e., it has needles which it never completely sheds while alive). There are some incredibly soft hardwoods (bass wood comes to mind), and some incredible hard softwoods (some species of old growth pine, for instance), but on the whole the catagories are roughly correct.Yep, the term hardwood has nothing to do with strength. Balsa is a hardwood!
Yup, always cut plugs with a plug cutter, match species, and do your best to match the grain direction, which makes for the strongest possible glue joint.Hardwood is any broad leaf tree (i.e., it looses it's leaves at some point in the year), and softwood is any evergreen tree (i.e., it has needles which it never completely sheds while alive). There are some incredibly soft hardwoods (bass wood comes to mind), and some incredible hard softwoods (some species of old growth pine, for instance), but on the whole the catagories are roughly correct.Yep, the term hardwood has nothing to do with strength. Balsa is a hardwood!
If ever I have to fix stripped screw holes on a neck I cut my plugs with a plug cutter.
Dowels give you end grain for the screw to grab. Much weaker. I have a piece of Osage Orange
that I cut my plugs out of. (tough stuff) I tried using Lignum Vitae but the plug cutters just burn
up on that stuff!