MDF Repair

the_kid

I bought some furniture from MFI a few years back, and one of the chest of drawers has fallen apart. It seems the pre-drilled holes have got larger and the screws will no longer stay in. As MFI are no longer around, I cannot replace the chest of drawers, so need to repair it, as it matches all the rest of the furniture I have.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I can use to fill the holes and be able to screw in the screws again so it is secure enough to hold the chest of drawers together.

totalsolutions

Wooden dowel or a rawl plug........

shaven-monkey

car body filler apparently works well, fill the hole, allow to cure, sand flush with the surface then drill a pilot hole into the filler for the screw.

alternatively, pack the holes with a few matchsticks / cocktail sticks then screw back together. MDF will split if you put too much pressure on it, so only use as many sticks as you need to get the screw to bite effectively.

If you want to be thorough, you could buy some dowel + drillbit and make your own dowel holes along the join, peg + glue them then screw the thing together to hold while the glue cures and it will be stronger than ever.

andrew-b

I'd try pushing in a matchstick plus ideally some wood glue pushed into the hole too, cut off flush to surface and then try to re-screw.

We have a pack of long matchsticks we use for the barbecue in the summer. When i use them i'll occassionally put the burnt out match back in the packet (after it has cooled down - unless you want to find out what a "genie" is!!) the opposite way round to the unused matches to ensure i always have at least a couple of burnt out matchsticks at the ready!

Andy