andrizzle
New member
I had posted a while back that I had a bit of a problem with my jackplate screw holes being stripped out on an old Squier Strat that for some reason I really love... mostly due to it's incredible resonance.
Anyway I got a lot of great responses in my last thread but most of them were from guys suggesting that I use Bondo or some sort of similar product. While I'm sure that's an incredible way of attending to this job, and I don't discredit their advice AT ALL... I didn't want to put a lot of money into this project..... (especially being that I've got a grand total of $90 invested in the entire guitar... originally bought for $14 from a guy when I was in high school).... so with a great suggestion from Ayrton, (Chris) of just patching it with some scrap wood and glue, I went to my local Home Depot and bought $3 worth of stuff and did a pretty fine job if I do say so myself.
I hope this helps some people in the same type of situation, I get so much from this forum that I hope this is a small return for the help I've received. Anyway... here it is chronicled in pictures.
So, as you can see, not only is the screw stripped, but it goes straight through to the hole. Normally the ol' toothpick trick that Pierre has in the Vault would be an excellent fix for this, but this requires a bit extra.
What is worse is that the screw hole on the other side is stripped as well.
SO, I went to Home Depot and bought 2 dowel rods (a little excessive I know, but it does the trick. I measured the hole before I left and it looked like a 3/4 inch rod would work perfectly so that's what I bought. I also bought the extra thin rod you see pictured in the background as well because I didn't have toothpicks at home. Luckily Home Depot has a "self-cutting" station and I cut the 3/4in. dowel down a few times in sections from 1/2in. - 3/4in. (guestimating). Then I cut those in halves as you see pictured.
First thing was first. I cut a piece of the smaller dowel rod to fit into the former screw hole. I intend to re-drill out the holes later with a very small drill bit. I took that piece of dowel, shoved it in the hole (a perfect fit by the way) and marked it off with a Sharpie pen as to where to cut it.
I then dipped it into Gorilla Glue and jammed it down into the hole. Afterward I took some low-grit sand paper to it to smoothen it out. (sorry for the grainy pic)
I let that dry for about 10 minutes and then selected the dowel half-piece that I thought would best suit my purpose and smothered it in glue and pressed it in tightly into the jackplate end:
Next I let that dry for about 3 hours... I had some errands to run... normally I'm not that patient! .... A quick brag about this next pic... The Stew-Mac guitar-workstation you see there was given to me by my wife this Valentine's day... how cool!!! Also, if you look closely you can see the BLACK jackplate that I'm going to be putting on there instead of the standard chrome one.
Here's what it looked like when I got back from my errands... sorry for the grainy pic again.
Next to fix the stripped screw hole on the other side of the jackplate. I used the smaller dowel again this time, cut it to size, covered in glue and jammed that bad boy in there!
Perfect fit!
An overhead shot of the almost final project:
Here I'm waiting for the glue to dry fully on the 2nd screw hole and I checked to make sure everything lined up well. I was worried that the bottom of the jack would hit the wood, but I had no problems with that.
Once the glue dried, I carefully drilled 2 small pilot holes where the screws would go and then screwed them in without problems. Here's what that looked like:
Anyway I got a lot of great responses in my last thread but most of them were from guys suggesting that I use Bondo or some sort of similar product. While I'm sure that's an incredible way of attending to this job, and I don't discredit their advice AT ALL... I didn't want to put a lot of money into this project..... (especially being that I've got a grand total of $90 invested in the entire guitar... originally bought for $14 from a guy when I was in high school).... so with a great suggestion from Ayrton, (Chris) of just patching it with some scrap wood and glue, I went to my local Home Depot and bought $3 worth of stuff and did a pretty fine job if I do say so myself.
I hope this helps some people in the same type of situation, I get so much from this forum that I hope this is a small return for the help I've received. Anyway... here it is chronicled in pictures.
So, as you can see, not only is the screw stripped, but it goes straight through to the hole. Normally the ol' toothpick trick that Pierre has in the Vault would be an excellent fix for this, but this requires a bit extra.
What is worse is that the screw hole on the other side is stripped as well.
SO, I went to Home Depot and bought 2 dowel rods (a little excessive I know, but it does the trick. I measured the hole before I left and it looked like a 3/4 inch rod would work perfectly so that's what I bought. I also bought the extra thin rod you see pictured in the background as well because I didn't have toothpicks at home. Luckily Home Depot has a "self-cutting" station and I cut the 3/4in. dowel down a few times in sections from 1/2in. - 3/4in. (guestimating). Then I cut those in halves as you see pictured.
First thing was first. I cut a piece of the smaller dowel rod to fit into the former screw hole. I intend to re-drill out the holes later with a very small drill bit. I took that piece of dowel, shoved it in the hole (a perfect fit by the way) and marked it off with a Sharpie pen as to where to cut it.
I then dipped it into Gorilla Glue and jammed it down into the hole. Afterward I took some low-grit sand paper to it to smoothen it out. (sorry for the grainy pic)
I let that dry for about 10 minutes and then selected the dowel half-piece that I thought would best suit my purpose and smothered it in glue and pressed it in tightly into the jackplate end:
Next I let that dry for about 3 hours... I had some errands to run... normally I'm not that patient! .... A quick brag about this next pic... The Stew-Mac guitar-workstation you see there was given to me by my wife this Valentine's day... how cool!!! Also, if you look closely you can see the BLACK jackplate that I'm going to be putting on there instead of the standard chrome one.
Here's what it looked like when I got back from my errands... sorry for the grainy pic again.
Next to fix the stripped screw hole on the other side of the jackplate. I used the smaller dowel again this time, cut it to size, covered in glue and jammed that bad boy in there!
Perfect fit!
An overhead shot of the almost final project:
Here I'm waiting for the glue to dry fully on the 2nd screw hole and I checked to make sure everything lined up well. I was worried that the bottom of the jack would hit the wood, but I had no problems with that.
Once the glue dried, I carefully drilled 2 small pilot holes where the screws would go and then screwed them in without problems. Here's what that looked like:
