Loose screw

[codaamok]

Howdy all,

This morning, the screws for the front of a kitchen cutlery drawer gave way as they lost their bite - seemingly after plenty of abuse by my family.

I'm fairly novice here, but how would you go above solving this problem? I'm thinking of filling the hole with silicon, reinserting the screw with the unit assembled and clamp it together while it cures. However my concern is whether the silicon can continue to endure my beating of my hulk-like family while finding cutlery.

Or, similar idea, but with a different filler material that's stronger and/or screw in after the filler has cured.

I can't quite tell the material of the front, it is covered in laminate, so I suspect it'll be MDF or something like that.

 

[NickDReed]

Stuff as many toothpicks as possible into the hole and then cut them off flush. You should be able to get enough bite when rescrewing to hold for a couple more years yet.

 

[Jake]

Drilling it out for a dowel, gluing and trimming off the dowel and then drilling the dowel for the screw would be a better fix than silicon which I doubt would hold against much (ab)use.

Edit: or do as Nick says, next step towards simplicity at the expense of a little security of fixing. Glue them in too.

 

[TheUnicorn]

milliput?

 

[Cabinetman]

Not the strongest way to make a drawer, but it’s what you’ve got. Nothing much in the way of filling with various bits and re-screwing will last more than a couple of years, and other drawers will probably go the same way.
Possibly change the drawers round and use this one in a less used position?
If all else fails you might need to put a block inside the drawer front corners and screw though that into the drawer side and front, but pick your screw first so that the thickness of the block is just right to prevent coming through the front! But gives the most bite.
Ian

 

[--Tom--]

New kitchen and a drawer lasted a year before screws pulled out. Stuffed with matchsticks and PVa and so far has held for 3 years. If/once they fail it’ll be a drill and glued in plug job.

If I were you I’d happily give the matchstick approach a go - if it fails you only wasted a few minutes and a few pennies, with no harm done