Two other tricks.
1. Gorilla Glue acts like LocTite in wood with screws. But you will need to upsize the screws in your case (not always). There's nothing wrong with using larger screws.
2. Many have good luck using some wood glue and some broken toothpicks to fill the hole and give the screw some new purchase on the wood. The toothpicks smallen-up the hole, and the glue holds the toothpicks when it dries.
I carry a complete array of spare hardware and single use sizes of Gorilla glue to make repairs of stuff that rattles out going down the road. I also have a supply of nuts, bolts and washers. When possible, I use nylock nuts. Any fastener that is prone to falling out that can be replaced with a bolt gets replaced with a bolt. Something like a #6 or #8 x 32 pitch thread is ideal for many applications. I also carry "quarter-twenty" bolts and a very few 1/2" bolts for things like stair rivets. It's all in a small, partitioned plastic hardware box under the sofa. BTW, it's all stainless so I can use it inside and out.
A word on Gorilla Glue. It behaves a lot like expanding spray foam insulation. Use it sparingly. If some squeezes out, WAIT for it to dry before trying to remove it. Like spray foam, it cannot be wiped off when wet. It just makes a mess. But when dry, you can remove it with a carpenter's knife.
I also carry a can of black Rustoleum paint and a few disposable tiny artist brushes. This allows you to paint screw heads both before installing and to touch up after. If you have lots of white screw heads, white paint is called for. This tactic makes those oddball, nonmatching screw heads blend in.
The war story to backup the claim: My previous high-wall popup had a folding, hard-side bathroom. The rear hinge on this Rube Goldberg contraption was screwed into a 3/4" x 3/4" piece of "parting stop". Softwood...very soft. It took no time at all for this heavy wall, heaving back and forth as we drove down dirt roads, to tear out the original hinge screws. I upsized one size from the original, and also determined that the screws could be slightly longer. I applied the Gorilla glue with new screws, and that was the end of that. It was a permanent repair. And I'll add that our favorite lakeside campsite (boondocking) was 11 miles down one of the worst "improved" gravel roads I have ever experienced. The road was so bad that it was not uncommon to encounter campers with broken springs caused by the brutal washboard and potholes. Top speed on this road while towing was 10 MPH. In many places 5 MPH. It took over an hour to go 11 miles. And yet that repair held from mid 2015 to the end of the 2019 camping season.
Done right, the Gorilla glue does a great job of holding in screws that might vibrate loose and then the object tugging on the screw yanks it out and enlarges the hole. One and done with the Gorilla glue.
__________________
Jim Moore
SW Colorado - 4-Corners Area
2020 Jayco X213 Rear Slide, 2006 RAM 1500 with Firestone Airbags No WDH
400 watts of solar on the roof & 200 watts of suitcase & 2 x GC2 batteries
Starlink Gen-3 running from a 500 watt pure sinewave inverter
Boondock almost exclusively on the shores of Lake Vallecito
|