Contractor drilled uneven drawer pulls, now what?


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Old 02-10-13, 12:30 PM
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Contractor drilled uneven drawer pulls, now what?

We had a new bar installed in our basement recently. The carpenter who installed the cabinets offered to drill holes for drawer pulls, which I foolishly took him up on. He didn't use a template to drill the holes (that should have been my first red flag) - he just measured the holes and marked them with a pencil for his 'sidekick' to drill.


Long story short - I noticed some of the pulls were severely uneven. He came back and 'fixed' the problem by drilling downward on the uneven holes, somewhat solving the problem but leaving long oblong holes that were visible from the inside of the cabinet. I made him replace those doors, but now I've noticed several drawers with crooked pulls as well.


The remaining three problem drawers have a fairly minor slant - these are 3" pulls and each one is uneven by around 1/16 of an inch. I have a few options, and I wanted to get some advice:


1) Do nothing. Is a 1/16" height difference between the two holes a reasonable variance that I should expect from any carpenter? Perhaps I'm only noticing this because the earlier issues that were much worse. Now that I've seen it though, it's very obvious - the pulls seem to tilt down to the right.


2) Somehow 'extend' one of the two holes to make them even. It's only 1/16", so I'm assuming it would be possible to make one of the holes slightly larger. What's the trick to doing this? Someone mentioned to me that you should stuff the hole with toothpicks and then drill slightly above it - any truth to this? One caveat with these drawers is that the face is very thick, so it may be tough to do this.


3) Replace the three drawers. This would cost ~$300, so I'd like to avoid this if possible.


Thanks in advance for your help/advice!
 
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Old 02-10-13, 01:45 PM
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Welcome to the forums!

A few pics might help us better understand what you have going on - http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html

A 1/16" might not be enough to bother with but a lot depends on how it looks. It is possible you only notice it because of the earlier mistakes [kudos to the carpenter for making those right] Toothpicks work good for tightening up loose screws in wallowed out wood but I'm not sure how well that would work for this. Another option is to drill the hole out big enough to accept a wood dowel that you would glue in place and then redrill the hole in the right place..... but first we need to figure out if the result would be worth the effort
 
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Old 02-10-13, 03:49 PM
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1/16" is enough to notice when it comes to hardware. I would try to drill larger holes for both screws. That way you only have to move each one 1/32". Measure your hardware to make sure the larger hole will not show on the face.

I don't know what this guy did, but typical hold size for that screw needs to be 3/16". Going up to 1/4" will give you the 1/32" you need for each hole. Be aware that when you drill a hole larger like this, it will want to grab and pull the drill through or swing the drill around. Make sure the drill is braced well so you don't hurt your wrist.
 
 

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