How to repair a desk with crumbled chip board where the cam bolt holes should be

deskrepairself-assembly-furniture

I have an old desk which must have been held together mostly by strength of will, since when we disassembled it for a move, we found that all of the cam bolts were sat in crumbled holes in the chip board.

I kept all of the bolts, hoping to refit them, but few of the holes have enough strength to take the bolts being screwed back into them.

existing cam bolts

I have been trying to think of ways to resurrect this desk, and so far have come up with several options.

  1. Fit the bolts back into their original positions using glue or epoxy resin to fill in the missing chipboard.
    • I have no idea what sort of glue/resin would be suitable or whether it would be strong enough.
      • If I go for this option, what do I need to look for in a glue/epoxy?
  2. Drill out new holes for the cam bolts.
    • It looks like I would have to be very careful to get the position correct, and then be very careful to drill the holes perfectly square.
  3. Replace the cam bolts with furniture bolts and barrel nuts.
    • This will mean unsightly bolt heads on the desk sides and worktop. enter image description here
  4. Just glue the desk back together.
    • This would mean that I wouldn't be able to take it apart again, so was discounted as an option.

These are all of the options I can see for the moment, but are there any other options I should consider?

Best Answer

Dig out the bad/loose stuff. Fill with an epoxy based filler (such as Bondo). Redrill the holes. Reinsert the cam bolts.

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