#Help me fix a broken cabinet door

An unnamed member of my family leaned on an Ikea-type kitchen cabinet door and the screws in the top hinge ripped out a bit of the particle board.

I tried to glue it back with what I had on hand (Goop) but it wasn't strong enough to hold the weight of the door. It would be easy enough to move the hinge higher or lower to match different holes that are not damaged if it weren't for the fact that the hinge is inset into the door and I'd like to avoid trying to router out a new space for it.

Not sure if you've gooped up the holes or not but when I've done very similar things I've treated it like stripped screwhole and tried to jam a piece of wood into the hole (BBQ skewers or sometimes even pencils can work for this) and the screw into that instead. How wrecked is the hole itself?

I would try the repair again with wood filler. Just pack the hole full of the stuff and when it dries you can drive the screws right into it. Instructions here.

jessamyn: Yeah, you can sort of see from the photos linked above that the holes are pretty big, but wood filler sounds like the way to go. Forgot such a thing existed!

Yup, fill the hole with wood filler or similar and then just drill a new hole into it. Hey presto.

If wood filler isn't strong enough, another tack I've used is to drill out much larger (say, ) and glue in a piece of appropriately sized dowel.

This even lets you do fine adjustments on hole position, because the dowel doesn't have as much tendency to push your drill bit back into the location of the old hole when you're drilling the new screw holes..

I think you're going to need to replace those two wood screws with machine screws and learn to live with a couple of discreet washers (and nuts or screwheads depending on the direction of insertion you choose) on the outside of the cabinet.

You could paint the outside hardware white, I guess.

Same situation, I've packed the area full of a 2 part wood and metal compatible epoxy, screwed as best as possible and then clamped the offending hinge. (note, this is a crap cabinet I don't care about). Still working today.

Are the doors themselves symetric? Sometimes you can swap mirrored doors (IE: a left and a right) and end up with the mounting holes in a different position.

It would be easy enough to move the hinge higher or lower to match different holes that are not damaged if it weren't for the fact that the hinge is inset into the door and I'd like to avoid trying to router out a new space for it.

The door hinge mount isn't routered but rather drilled with a, usually, 35mm forstner bit. It would be buck simple for a custom cabinet shop to bore another hole (literally a two minute job) and you could just take them the door and have them drill it higher up. I'd guess the fee for this would be low or nothing.

Agree with a proper filling. Drill out the holes to 1/4 then fill with a cut dowel and wood glue. After drying plane and file the filling to level. Paint white and drill new screw holes. I think wood filler alone may not be strong enough for such a heavy use application

Cut dowel is likely to be the strongest provided you can drill a clean hole into the damaged spot without drilling through the door. Hint: to avoid this, measure up from the tip of the drill bit and put masking tape at that point - don't let the masking tape reach the surface.

Be sure to take the whole door off the hinges before you start - this is easier with the door on a supported flat surface.

The cheese way to do this is to fill the perimeter of the hole (or even most of the hole) with toothpicks cut to the hole depth and dipped in wood glue. When wait 10 or 15 minutes for it the glue to get tacky and screw into the toothpicks/glue mass and support the door until it dries. The teeth of the wood screw bite into the toothpicks nicely and the glue holds everything together.

When choosing a wood filler, you want a 2-part product -- either an epoxy or polyester-based stuff (basically Bondo, which would also work). Don't buy any premixed water or oil-based putty for this, and don't buy a powder that you mix with water. Since you can move whatever that appliance is next to the cabinet, jamjam's idea of just putting a nut on the outside would work too.

Seconding Mitheral above on this: You don't show the front of the cabinets, but if the handles are in a neutral (central) region, you can turn the doors upside down, exchange left for right, and have fresh regions to screw the hinges into.

My dad taught me to use wooden matches and wood glue, rather than toothpicks. Works great for a lot of things.

posted by looli at 2:40 PM on May 14, 2013

I ended up going with KwikWood ($6 for the smallest tube, which was 5x more than I needed.) So far, so good, but it's only been a day. I'll post again if it fails.

posted by gwint at 5:32 AM on May 15, 2013