Wood – safe distance for re-drilling nail holes

Asking the basic questions is what gets us started.... not silly at all.

If they are as simple as nail holes from picture hanging and the like, and there are only a few of them, use spackle. It comes in small quantities, pints for example, so much will not go to waste. It is intended for only small holes.

If there are a lot of repairs, you may want to go with joint compound, it is pretty much the same as spackle, it is easy to sand, water based for easy clean up, but you will get a bunch more for the about the same money. It is intended for larger repairs, or new drywall install, can be built up, but it does shrink a bit, not so that it will fall out. If the shrinkage is noticeable, add another coat, no biggie.

Plaster is way overkill for this type of repair, it requires a skill to use. I have tried to use it before years ago, and it set up as soon as it touched the wall, quite surprising. I now know were it is to be used nowadays, and nail repair is not one of them.

It is possible that there are several reasons for the screw head destruction.

• You may be using an electrical tool that is not at all suitable for driving screws. Some tools designed for drilling holes are not going to offer enough torque at a low enough speed to properly drive screws. If your tool starts out with a huge burst of speed it can almost certainly lead to immediate stripping of the screw head.

• You are using the wrong size driver bit for the type of screw that you have. If the screws are Philips head be aware that there are multiple sizes of drivers such as #1, #2 or #3.

• You may attempting to use the wrong style of driver with the type of slot the screw. Do not mismatch the likes of Philips and Pozidrive. There may be other specialty type slots that are also similar but require the proper drive bit selection.

• It may be that you are not properly aligned with the axis of the screw. Proper installation of screws with a driver requires that the driver be directly in line with the axis of the screw.

• When driving screws with a power driver is in necessary to apply a pressure on the driver to properly keep the driver bit in the screw slot. Without proper pressure the bit can run out of the slot and strip the screw head.

• It is possible that you did not properly prepare the medium into which you are trying to drive the screws. With many screws you will need a pilot hole in the area where the threads are to engage with the medium. If you are attaching another piece to the base medium you would want to provide a screw body clearance hole to the mounted piece. This can actually result in a stronger screw joint as well.