I've had my Victorian flat rewired and this involved moving electrical sockets from the skirting boards (baseboards) leaving rectangular holes in the wood. Is it possible to patch these and repaint or am I better off replacing the boards?
Wood – Patch hole in skirting board
baseboardwood
Related Solutions
Try this little trick.
Cut two rectangles from your plywood an inch or two larger than what you want your finished pieces to be. Be sure one face of these rectangles are a straight factory edge.
Now stack the two pieces together and clamp them with the factory edges one on top of the other, nice and flush.
Scribe a perfectly square line using a builders square perpendicular to the factory edge on both sides separated by the dimension you want the piece to be.
Now take a perfectly straight piece of wood and clamp it onto the surface exactly at the dimension of the distance of the edge of your blade to the edge of the saw frame. You now have created a guide to run your saw against while making a cut through both pieces of plywood at the same time.
Repeat this procedure on the other side.
For the last cut parallel to the factory edge, measure precisely the distance and mark on either side, draw a line between the marks. This line should be square to the end cuts and parallel to the factory edge.
Now reattach the cutting guide at the blade to frame dimension as you did for the edges and cut both pieces at once again.
You have now made three cuts, two at a 90 degree to the factory edge and one parallel to the factory edge. Since both pieces were cut at the same time, they should be identical.
Settled on going through the trouble of carrying the bevel around the outlet. It's not what I would have done if I had the foresight to move and rewire the boxes, but it's the best option with what I have now.
It should look better with a coat or two of paint. ;)
Thanks for the input guys!
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Best Answer
You would need to patch it with small blocks of wood called a dutchman.
Cut a block of wood to roughly the same size and shape of the hole. Make sure it is slightly over sized. Then hold the block up to the hole and trace around it. After this is done, use a chisel and carefully chip out the hole to match the size of the wood patch. Don't cut through completely, leave about 1/4" of wood left inside to give support to the dutchman.
When the hole is cut to fit the dutchman, carefully apply a little glue to the opening and the wood and press it in. At this point, the patch will be sitting proud of the wood, this is normal. Once the glue has dried, take a belt sander, or a hand plane and take down the dutchman so it is level with the surface. Any cracks can then be filled with wood putty. Then you can sand and paint the trim.