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Filling Screw Holes In Guitar Body (to Be Redrilled). What Can I Use?


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First of all I want to say that the projectguitar.com pages are excellent and I'm glad I took the time to find the forums since I have an obscure question. In short, I have two guitars that need some type of filler. An Ibanez 1660 V that needs the pickup mounting holes filled/redrilled and an Aria Pro that has a very loose strap peg screw. What product should I use? The only thing I have around the house is JB Weld. I know one thing... it's strong! Can I use that?

I'll try to keep the story short on the Ibanez V, but what happened is I sold the stock pickups and their mounting rings a few months ago. I had some good pickups to load in the guitar and I ordered some new standard sized mounting rings, only to find out that this particular Ibanez had custom dimensions. So, the stock mounting rings were a tad larger overall. My new screwholes will overlap with the old ones. Oh, by the way, I will be sanding down the guitar and refinishing it after this.

Here's a picture of the Ibanez. They're quite rare, only made in 1985. I hope to give it a full makeover in the next couple weeks!

picture030st5.jpg

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Sawdust and wood glue worked nicely in guitars where I've moved strap buttons or plugged/drilled new holes from stripped threads. Mix some up with a matchstick and plug it in there something chronic - make sure you don't plug air in there though! The other option would be to open out the hole with a drill and gluing a dowel into the body using wood glue again. One option is prettier and less obvious, the other is plain to see but probably easier to get perfect results.

Edited by Prostheta
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If the new holes I'm drilling are going to overlap the old holes, I prefer the plugs to have the wood grain going the same way (not the typical dowel, where it's end grain showing on the top of the plug). Just seems that the hole gets drilled where I want it, easier this way. (maybe end-grain has bands of harder wood and softer wood, making the drill bit more likely to wander a little)

time to look around for the small hollow metal tubes, make some teeth on the end, and use the drill press to make some plugs, like this :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...kplugs12051.jpg

I *might* have used the metal tube out of a ball-point pen to make these :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...wolfnut3064.jpg

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I don't want to bang on about one product, but I have found Selleys Plasti-bond to be the best filler for guitar things, as it can be stained to almost the same colour as the surrounding wood; and it is drillable and strong. I only say this because the task of plugs and inserts is always a fiddly one and it is not easy to make a tight fitting plug that is redrillable, especially as using even the same kind of wood results in 'drill guiding'.

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Quick and dirty method - With something simple like a loose strap button or pickup ring, put a drop of glue on a toothpick, insert and break off at the top of the hole. After it dries you can usually just put the screw back in without drilling.

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