One of the four neck screws on my standard strat project won't tighten down completely. Any recommendation on how to fix it? Slightly fatter screw maybe?
Ya it feels like that. It tightens a bit, but just keeps spinning. Cool, I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the suggestion!
If you don't want to dowel and redrill, then do what you would do with a stripped p/g screw or strap button...dip a wooden toothpick in Elmer's glue and put into the neck hole. Retighten and let dry.
I’ve done this, it works... if I was a working pro, I’d probably have it doweled/redrilled, but toothpick and wood glue works well enough for my use
Not to discredit your solution, but I've tried that out once and it just didn't work for such a large hole, it wasn't enough for the screw to "bite" into. An old Silvertone off a friend I've had around for some fixes last year had the same issue, in the end of the day, all four holes had to be plugged and re-drilled (one at a time). The neck pocket was incredibly poorly angled and so adding a properly made wooden shim changed its angle enough that the screws went in crooked enough not to bite into the wood strong enough.
The toothpick and hide glue fix has worked great for me. Depending on the size of the whole, you can use more than one.
I vote dowel and drill also. If you took it to a Luthier, that is what he/she would do. I don't picture them shoving soldering wire in the hole...and if they did, I wouldn't pay them. If it's worth fixing, it's worth fixing right.
Taught to me by the master. Thousands of vintage Stratocasters have solder wire in their screw holes. ha ha. Sounds personal. ha ha Put enough so that it grabs.
My preferred solution would be to dowel and redrill, but if that isn't an option for some reason the old toothpick method works the great majority of the time.
Toothpick works well. My only caveat would be to make sure the toothpick is actually "real" wood. Most of the ones I see here are bamboo. If the hole was big enough I would try a matchstick as well. If gluing, I would probably try to let the glue dry before I re-inserted the screw - that or just skip the glue.
Hmm, lots of good ideas here. If it was an Fender American I would do the dowel. But it's a beat Squier Standard so I'm going to try the easier routes, first. Thanks guys!
If you really want to do it right you need to make a crossgrain dowel and line the dowel's grain up with the grain of the neck. That way the screw doesn't have to try to grip the end grain of a normal dowel. I did that to make a 3-hole neck into a 4-hole neck because two of the holes end up very close to each other if you don't plug and re-drill. I even went out in the yard and got a maple branch to make the dowel from, so the wood matched reasonably.
If a screw hole is stripped ill line the whole hole with super glue, but not fill it. Just make the walls of the whole alittle thicker. Quickest fix i think Let the glue dry all the way, then screw.
