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Strap Button Screw Pulled Out

#41
Ric5 said:
look at the end of Lemmy's bass here --->>> Link Removed
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"The strap button had taken huge abuse over the years (I extracted 8 snapped screws and left in another 5)"

awesome!
rotflmao.gif
after the second busted screw, i'd think it would be time for a way bigger and sturdier idea, like a big ol' lag-bolt or something.
 
#42
michaelkoss said:
I filled the hole with plain-ole wood glue, stuck three toothpicks in the hole, cleaned up the excess glue, then used wire cutters to snip the toothpicks even with the body. I did that last night and let the glue set until I got home tonight. Then I went to Ace Hardware and got a rubber washer to replace the felt one per one of the recommendations. Then I simply screwed in the button. Certainly not worth a fight.

Thank you for everyone's input and kind intentions of helping me. I really do appreciate it. I'm back to rocking and we should all be happy about that! :bassist:
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you might be OK, but i'm afraid you sabotaged yourself by waiting for the glue to dry before cranking the screw in; you lost all the strength advantage from the wood glue drying while "clamped" by the screw.

also, if you were able to just screw the button into dry wood without drilling, the hole probably wasn't tight enough.
 
#43
anyway, here's the (admittedly anecdotal) evidence for the "crank in while wet" method, from one John Phillips, a very knowledgeable and rigorous tech guy who used to post on TGP:
John Phillips said:
If you put an endgrain dowel into a plain (drilled out) hole, you're making a weak plug. Either the dowel is not tight in the hole, so the glue is not properly squeezed while it sets, or if the dowel is too tight, it will force out too much glue as it goes into the hole. If you do this, then drill out and fit a screw once the glue has hardened, you're putting a screw into uncompressed endgrain wood held to the body by uncompressed glue, or very little glue at all. That's weaker than the original fitment.

Better is to make the dowel a slightly looser fit, getting more glue between it and the sides of the hole, then put the screw back in without drilling, while the glue is wet. This will expand the dowel (much like a wall plug works) and compress the glue while it sets, which will make a much firmer joint between the dowel and the surrounding wood, and it will also make the dowel itself harder by compression.

Better still is not to drill out in the first place, so the dowel now has the rough remains of the old screw thread (which is never totally stripped out) to force itself around and form an even better bond with the body wood.

If you want to use a dowel, that's the best way of doing it. You can shave the dowel down so it's a good fit in the hole without drilling the hole out. But at that point it's hardly any different from packing the hole with toothpicks. The goal is to create a compressed, cast-in thread with the wood fibers bonded tightly with glue (which is far stronger than the wood itself) - not to simply replace old weak endgrain wood with new weak endgrain wood... which is what drilling, doweling, and drilling again does.

The test I did was quite simple - I took a scrap Squier neck, left one hole alone, deliberately stripped two of the holes by doublethreading them a couple of times, and drilled out the fourth. Then I repaired the three holes - the drilled one with an endgrain dowel as you're describing, one with glued matchsticks (not toothpicks actually, and they're not even quite as hard wood) left to dry, and the last one with glued matchsticks with the glue left wet and the screw put in immediately. I screwed the neck to a piece of wood as if to a body. Then, after the last repair had dried too, I got a ratchet handle with a screwdriver adaptor and cranked up the screws until something stripped. The dried-glue and doweled/drilled holes stripped out again very easily. The wet-glued and original thread screws didn't - the bolt heads actually snapped off before the threads stripped. OK, that's just one test, so it maybe can't be taken as complete proof, but the difference in result was very large, enough that I'm quite convinced which is the best method...

... and it isn't the "proper" one.

I agree with Jack [briggs, a top luthier.-w]that properly fitting a sidegrain dowel into a hole - provided it's glued absolutely rock-solid - might be better still, purely because sidegrain is so much stronger than endgrain. But it's so much more work than the easy way that I really don't see the point, when the easy one is already stronger than the metal screw.
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i've posted this a few times in these threads, but it's always worth revisiting.
 
#46
202dy said:
Filling the hole with goop, no matter what the properties are, is not the way to perform this repair. Imagine paying a tech to perform this repair and they filled it with some kind of akempucky. While it doesn't make for happy customers it can certainly do irreparable damage to a tech's reputation.

Using JB Weld is just amateur hour.
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I guess if I was paying a tech to do this I would be expecting it to be done the right way. But, the OP didn't say "Only professionals reply"

"Amateur"? Thank you, I pride myself on being "amateur". Olympic athletes are also amateurs.
 
#48
Well fellas, JB sticks to wood, but water borne resin such as carpenter's glue penetrates the cell walls locking itself, no, creating a composite material in conjunction with the wood, creeping into evey shredded bit of wood unifying it into a solid mass. I will wager that JB doesn't; it may stick really well, but only to the surface. Plus it doesn't clean up quite as easily as suggested by the site; kinda smears around. Kind of annoying to deal with when wood glue works so well; no mixing, just tip the bottle up, give a tiny squeeze and it's right where you want it.
 
#49
+1

again, these complicated methods are pointless when the easy way is strong enough once dry to break the screw head off if you crank it too hard.
 
#50
walterw said:
+1

again, these complicated methods are pointless when the easy way is strong enough once dry to break the screw head off if you crank it too hard.
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Yeah, since I've owned and flipped a fair amount of basses(probably close to 100, anways), and nearly every one of them used, I've run into this situation many, many times...

The absolute 100% failure-free method that's worked best *for me* is to fill the hole with toothpicks and wood glue, breaking them off flush, put a little wood glue on the screw, and crank it down real good, while still wet... If I can't really tighten the screw really well with the glue still wet, I add more toothpicks and wood glue 'til I can crank 'er down real tight while still wet... I have never had this method fail, when going about it this way - and have done this on well over 50 basses... It seems to me that using toothpicks and wood glue kind of forms a bit of a laminate in the hole - and most people know how strong a laminate is...

FWIW, I throw my basses around pretty good during a typical gig - and have never had a problem using the above method and Schaller straplocks... The nice thing about this repair method is that it's cheap, easy to do, easy to clean up, and virtually risk-free... if done with even a minimum of care, it ends up being virtually imperceptable on even the most expensive of instruments...


- georgestrings
 
#51
Here's a thought..... So you are rockstar and own an early example of a Fender bass, let's say a 57 P. You use it a lot because you just love it. Strap button fails during a stadium show. Your tech quickly brings a bass over, the show must go on. After, your tech wants to drill into your relic and alter it by putting a plug in or drilling another hole like Lemmy's bass. You cringe at the idea, when some lumper hired for the evening overhears and suggests picks and glue, adding that you aren't altering the instrument just rebuilding the shot hole. Sounds about right to you and that strap hole never fails. You are glad you didn't let that nasty tech remove original wood from your old girlfriend.......just a,thought.
 
#52
96tbird said:
Here's a thought..... So you are rockstar and own an early example of a Fender bass, let's say a 57 P. You use it a lot because you just love it. Strap button fails during a stadium show. Your tech quickly brings a bass over, the show must go on. After, your tech wants to drill into your relic and alter it by putting a plug in or drilling another hole like Lemmy's bass. You cringe at the idea, when some lumper hired for the evening overhears and suggests picks and glue, adding that you aren't altering the instrument just rebuilding the shot hole. Sounds about right to you and that strap hole never fails. You are glad you didn't let that nasty tech remove original wood from your old girlfriend.......just a,thought.
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Yeah, the toothpicks and woodglue method is certainly the least risky and "invasive" solution, and is usually totally concealed under the replaced strap button - besides actually working quite well...


- georgestrings
 
#53
darius8 said:
I guess if I was paying a tech to do this I would be expecting it to be done the right way. But, the OP didn't say "Only professionals reply"

"Amateur"? Thank you, I pride myself on being "amateur". Olympic athletes are also amateurs.
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The idea here on H,S,&T is to provide the best possible information so that folks can do their own repairs. It doesn't matter if you're a pro or a guy who does his own work. What matters is to recommend sound materials and methods.

Amateur status in the Olympics is truly something to be proud of.

Amateur Hour is sixty minutes of caterwauling, bad dancing, and magic tricks that don't really amaze. Like JB Weld in the strap button hole.
 
#54
96tbird said:
Well fellas, JB sticks to wood, but water borne resin such as carpenter's glue penetrates the cell walls locking itself, no, creating a composite material in conjunction with the wood, creeping into evey shredded bit of wood unifying it into a solid mass. I will wager that JB doesn't; it may stick really well, but only to the surface. Plus it doesn't clean up quite as easily as suggested by the site; kinda smears around. Kind of annoying to deal with when wood glue works so well; no mixing, just tip the bottle up, give a tiny squeeze and it's right where you want it.
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Precisely. JB Weld sticks to itself and to surfaces. There is no molecular bond between the goo and the wood.

There is a lot to like about cleaning up with a damp paper towel, too.
 
#55
walterw said:
not at all, actually; the toothpicks may themselves be long grain, but slathering them and the hole itself with wood glue, then cranking the screw in does the following:

-forces the new glue-soaked wood to conform against the glue-soaked remnants of the old threads in the hole, making for a better "grip" than a smooth dowel slid into a smooth drilled-out hole

-forces the metal screw threads into the other side of the hole, also creating a firm grip

-all this compressed (in other words, clamped) glue-soaked wood dries "cast" into the shape of the screw threads, creating a nice strong "composite" to hold the screw
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Compression. Sounds like a good idea if used in small enough doses.

it would take some work to stuff the hole tight enough to split the body! it's possible, but i have to think a minimum of mechanical "sense" would tell you not to go that far.
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There was someone complaining of this very thing on this board in the last six weeks or so. I have seen it a few times. Not many, but a few.

+1 wood filler is an utter fail

i guess it's probably strong enough, but what a messy, risky, time-consuming hassle!

i take that back, i don't know how well it sticks to wood, it may not even be all that strong.
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Just what we needed: another resin of unknown usefulness to stock in the shelves.

BTW, just because something can be used to temporarily fix a problem i.e. leaky engine block, doesn't automatically make it a panacea for everything else. Besides, simple and reversible is usually better. Tooth picks and glue are that. I concede the point.
 
#56
202dy said:
"Filling the hole with goop, no matter what the properties are, is not the way to perform this repair. Imagine paying a tech to perform this repair and they filled it with some kind of akempucky. While it doesn't make for happy customers it can certainly do irreparable damage to a tech's reputation."

I said:
"I guess if I was paying a tech to do this I would be expecting it to be done the right way. But, the OP didn't say "Only professionals reply"

then:

202dy said:
The idea here on H,S,&T is to provide the best possible information so that folks can do their own repairs. It doesn't matter if you're a pro or a guy who does his own work. What matters is to recommend sound materials and methods.
Click to expand...

I agree, give the OP all/any possible suggestions from pro or amateur hobbiest what not. JB Weld is a very sound product thats been used for decades in all types of repair work. You can't discount this product if you've never used it. There maybe a popular way to fix a strap button but it's not the only way.
So far, you have not explained WHY JB Weld wouldn't work.
Disprove it and I'll quit talking about it. That's fair.
 
#59
sorry, JB weld has a rep with luthier-types as a mostly disastrous home fix that makes correcting it later difficult if not impossible.

it, along with electrical tape, has no place in guitar repair.
 
#60
I admit I am a fan of the cross grain wood dowel method for my own guitars. I am a carpenter by trade and somehow this just seems like the right way to me. That said, I have absolutely no doubt that toothpicks and wood glue will do the job perfectly well too. I know too many people who have done it and have yet to hear of one failing. The horn on the OP's bass seems small enough to me to make me hesitate drilling on it.
 

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