What would you do with this?

[Edwin Strohacker]

Strap button screw sheared off last night, right in the middle of wigging out & it's my favourite guitar too. Far too small to drill out?

[davidd]

That is very annoying. I would try and drill it out, is there any metal protruding from the body at all?

[Edwin Strohacker]

No, none. Not the best photo I know, the screw is recessed in the cavity about half a cm or so. Don't really want to screw a new hole if I can avoid it, I'd much prefer to extract what's in there.

[dojo]

Get a screw extractor or drill it out.

Fill the hole with right sized dowel and wood glue.

Drill a pilot hole and install a new button.

[Evilex]

dojo said:

Get a screw extractor or drill it out.

Fill the hole with right sized dowel and wood glue.

Drill a pilot hole and install a new button.

This, but ensure you use a decent hardwood piece of dowel. Too soft, and the screw will tear out. And use as big a screw as the strap button will allow, even if you have to grind the head down a bit too make it fit in the recess.

[Edwin Strohacker]

I reckon the shaft of that self tapper is far too narrow to drill out or extract. The path of least resistance is going to be to fill it in & re drill nearby. The scar I'll call mojo.

[singlecoil]

Edwin Strohacker said:

I reckon the shaft of that self tapper is far too narrow to drill out or extract. The path of least resistance is going to be to fill it in & re drill nearby. The scar I'll call mojo.

It won't be a self tapper (which are hardened) it will be ordinary steel. If I was tackling that I would use a centre punch first, then a small diameter drill bit, as soon as that started I would switch to a larger bit. Final drill size would be equal to the dowel I had ready to plug it with, so probably 5mm.

[Engineer792]

What I would try is to dig out just enough wood around the top of the screw to be able to grip the screw firmly with a pair of forceps or similar tool.
It all depends on whether you can grip it hard enough to be able to screw it out.
Once the screw is out, you can fill in the damage with some wood filler and touch up the paintwork.

[singlecoil]

I'd advise against wood filler, it won't be strong enough for a hole that size, which will be bigger than the screw.

[Edwin Strohacker]

Done now, I just screwed next to the existing hole. It's a working guitar, nothing to be too precious over.