If a Screw Is Loose in Wood, Use a Toothpick and Wood Glue

Short answer: fill the hole with wood and glue, then drive the same screw again. When a screw spins without biting, its threads have chewed through the fibres around the hole and there is nothing left to grip. You do not need a bigger screw — you need to give the old one fresh wood to bite into, and a few glue-coated toothpicks do exactly that in about a minute.

Why the hole stripped in the first place

A screw holds in wood because its threads compress fibres between them. Three things destroy that grip:

• Over-tightening, especially with a drill on a high torque setting — the threads cut a smooth bore instead of biting into one.
• Repeated removal and refitting. Every cycle shaves away a little more material, which is why hinges and drawer runners are the usual casualties.
• Load and vibration on a hole that was drilled too wide or too shallow to begin with.

In chipboard and MDF it happens much faster, because there are no long fibres to hold on to — only glued particles that crumble.

The toothpick repair, step by step

1. Remove the screw and clear the debris out of the hole.
2. Dip two or three wooden toothpicks in PVA wood glue. Coat them; do not drown them.
3. Push them into the hole until it is snugly packed. Bigger hole, more toothpicks — you want a firm fill, not a wedge that splits the wood.
4. Snap them off flush with the surface. A sharp knife breaks them more cleanly than twisting.
5. Wait. Ten to fifteen minutes if the load is light and you are in a hurry; overnight is the honest answer for anything carrying a door.
6. Drive the screw back in by hand. Screwdriver, not drill — you want to feel the resistance come back.

It works because the toothpicks restore material for the threads to compress, and the glue bonds them to the surrounding wood so the whole plug behaves like solid timber.

When toothpicks are not enough

The golf tee is the underrated option here: hardwood, tapered, and almost perfectly sized for a stripped hinge hole. Glue it, tap it in, cut it flush, drill a pilot hole, done.

What not to do

• Do not simply reach for a fatter screw. It sometimes works, but in chipboard it usually splits the panel, and on a hinge it changes how the head sits in the countersink so it no longer seats flush.
• Do not power it in with a drill. You will strip the fresh repair exactly as fast as you stripped the original.
• Do not skip the pilot hole after plugging a large hole with a dowel — hardwood plugs split.
• Do not use plastic wall plugs in furniture. They are made for masonry, they compress unpredictably in wood, and they make the next repair harder than it needed to be.

Frequent questions

Does it have to be toothpicks? No. Matchsticks with the heads cut off, bamboo skewers, coffee stirrers, slivers off a scrap of timber — anything wooden that packs the hole. Wood is the point, because it glues to wood properly.

Which glue? Ordinary PVA wood glue. Super glue sets fast but goes brittle and bonds poorly to end grain. Epoxy is overkill except on badly damaged holes, where it is genuinely the right answer.

Will it hold as well as the original? In solid timber, usually yes and often better, because the plug ends up denser than what stripped out. In chipboard, treat it as a good repair rather than a permanent one.

How long before I can load it? Light load, fifteen minutes. A cabinet door, a couple of hours. A door on its hinges, overnight — hinges carry a live swinging load and are the least forgiving place to rush glue.

Can I do it without dismantling everything? Usually yes, one screw at a time. If you do have to take something apart, photograph it before you disassemble it — that one habit saves more time than the repair itself.

This is one of those fixes that turns a wobbly, irritating piece of furniture back into a solid one for the price of a toothpick, which is precisely what a basic home toolkit exists to make possible. When the screw is seized rather than loose, reach for the right product and remember that WD-40 is a solvent, not a lubricant. Everything you own carries a maintenance cost — paying it in one-minute repairs beats paying it in replacements.