Knowing how to fix a stripped screw hole is essential when the screw turns endlessly or pulls straight out of its hole. A screw in a stripped screw hole has no holding power—loose door hinge screws are a prime example.

Be careful not to continue driving after the screw is fully sunk. Doing so will bore out the threads, enlarge the hole, and require you to repeat the process with an even larger screw.

In a pinch, a plastic drywall anchor can be used to fix a stripped screw hole in wood, though its holding power isn't equal to that of a plastic snap-off wood anchor.

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The simplest fix, using a longer screw, bypasses the stripped section and grabs deeper into the wood. Other methods for fixing a stripped screw hole in wood include: filling the hole with wood; lining the hole with a metal screen repair kit; or using a plastic snap-off wood anchor.

There are many ways to rethread a screw hole in wood and metal that are meant to be as strong as the original screw hole, from adding wider screws and filling the holes to using liquid stripped thread repair and tap-and-die kits.

Lee has over two decades of hands-on experience remodeling, fixing, and improving homes, and has been providing home improvement advice for years.

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Use the tap-and-die method when the screw hole in the metal can be enlarged to accept a wider diameter screw. The tap-and-die method is essentially the same as the threaded insert method—just minus the insert.

With this fix, a cone-shaped polypropylene anchor is screwed into the hole as a filler material for the new screw threads.

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Liquid stripped thread repair creates new threads from an A/B solution. The solution catalyzes after the two parts are mixed, building a hard substance.

Use a low-torque setting on your drill/driver or use a manual screwdriver if choosing to add a longer hinge screw into a door jamb. The longer screw could reach the framing behind the jamb and twist the door frame out of alignment.

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A good pair of locking pliers can help get a stripped screw out without a drill. Grip the head and twist it right and left to loosen it up in the hole so you can lift it out.

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When a screw strips out its hole in wood, the threads remove the wood to the threads' crest (its maximum diameter). All wood between the threads is gone, so the screw has nothing to grab onto.

Though moving the screw to a new position is usually best, that's not always possible. A stripped screw hole is easy to fix, and you have several easy, low- or no-cost solutions at your disposal. Materials are so basic, you might already have them on hand.

The best methods for fixing a stripped screw hole in metal: drive a wider-diameter screw; apply liquid stripped thread repair; add a threaded metal insert; or create new threads with a tap-and-die set.

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The easiest way to replace a stripped screw in metal is to step up to a larger-diameter screw. For sheet metal, this is often your only option, short of patching the metal and re-drilling.

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Multi-piece tap-and-die sets capable of tapping and threading a wide range of metal screw holes start at $30 to $50 for basic kits and range upward to $200 to $300 for larger, better-quality kits.

A cyanoacrylate glue is a quick-bonding super glue that can fix stripped screw holes. Cyanoacrylate is an extremely strong bonding agent. Fill the hole with the glue, let it set for a couple of minutes, then re-install the screw.

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Use tanged threaded inserts when the screw hole must retain its original diameter (or go smaller). A threaded insert is a sleeve that replaces material lost from the boring process. A tang is a small metal tab that facilitates rotation of the threaded insert.

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When a screw strips out its hole in metal, the hole widens to the width of the threads' crest. While wood screws have the entire shank available for grabbing material, screws in some types of metal have just a thin layer of metal. For example, the metal on some steel entry doors is just 14 to 16 gauge (5/64-inch to 1/16-inch).

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Some types of screw hole repair kits use a metal screen with sharp ridges. These ridges are intended to mimic screw hole threads.

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The threads may not be cutting correctly, the screw has an unthreaded neck portion, or the hole or screw is stripped. If you are trying to screw it in, you'll need to do a fix using any number of methods. If you are trying to remove a screw that keeps turning, you have to get creative and use elbow grease to get it out. Try tightly lifting the head of the screw with pliers, wedging a multitool under the head, or doing one of those methods while reverse-driving the drill to create pressure on the screw to lift up.

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