Repairing a Stripped Screw (Giving Our 50 Year Old Picnic Table New Life) June 27, 2012
Hi there!,
Have you ever tried to repair a piece of furniture, with a stripped out screw? Nope, neither have I. But Mr. Wonderful showed me how and you may want to know how to do this someday. Or, not.
This fabulous tutorial, and I use that term loosely, was done on a 50 year old, redwood picnic table Bob made with his dad. A family heirloom! One leg was wobbly and needed to be fixed for our neighborhood 4th of July BBQ.
1. Bob drilled a hole to accommodate a piece of 1/4″ dowel snugly.
2. He then covered the piece of dowel with wood glue and hammered that thing in, flush with the wood surface.
Yep, like that! You can check the instructions on the wood glue you have, but Bob let the table sit overnight, to let the glue dry completely. He didn’t want the drill to cause the new piece of dowel to turn, when drilling a new hole.
Now we have a solid table to serve BBQ dinners on, for the next fifty years. (yes, I know how old we’ll be!)
It was painted this awful “redwood” color. I don’t know why they call it redwood, because I’ve never seen a redwood tree this color! So, I asked Bob to prime it for me so I could do a driftwood wash that I learned about at Haven.
He was painting a couple of other little chairs for me as well, so we had a little assembly-line going on, in the driveway.
I heard that you could thin down Annie Sloan’s Paris Grey layered with a diluted Old White and voila!, driftwood!
Unless an amazing transformation takes place over night, it doesn’t really look like driftwood! We’ll look at it in the morning, when the light’s good. At least just about anything’s an improvement over the “redwood”!
Oh, and if you’re local, you’ll want to check out what should be a stellar estate sale, in the “Fab 40’s”, this weekend!
I can’t wait! Hope to see you there! Are you an estate sale junkie, like me?
Have a wonderful day!
I’ve never fixed a stripped out screw. Using a dowel is the best thing, it seems, for a wooden table. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.
So sweet of you to say, Patti! You were great to talk to at Haven! I think we could have talked well into the night! You’ve got a great attitude and a “twinkle” about you, that is so fun to be around!
Barb…I love this tutorial….I am bookmarking this and showing my hubby!…He will love it….and I saw those chairs in the background…they are really cute!!….Have fun at the Estate Sale…I have started going to them in this area with a group of gals who love antiques…I am hooked!!….But we learned our lesson to be there at the crack of dawn…! Will also have to try that ASCP driftwood cocktail!…
Just wait til you see the finished product! The jury is still out. Ha! And remember what Rashan said about thrift shopping? The same thing applies to estate sales. Don’t pay too much. Some of the pricing I see is kinda crazy!… But boy, is it fun!
Really brilliant…tell your husband I would still be scratching my head!! Love the driftwood shade and your chairs as well! Wish I could make the sale…
xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
I wish you could too, Karena! 🙂
Isn’t it fun to have an assistant to do the prep work? Haha. What an estate sale that will be! I can’t wait to hear what you find.