Partially worn and badly worn screw holes are all too common in the
clock repair business, so I plug them with a piece of hardwood dowel.

1. Clean wood holes to remove loose debris if needed.

2. Find a hardwood dowel of approximate diameter of hole
top, and slightly sharpen dowel in pencil sharpener.

3. Shove dowel firmly into hole and rotate dowel while
holding pencil against dowel to mark depth.

4. Pull dowel out and score at pencil mark with sharp knife.

5. With toothpick, apply glue inside hole and to sharpened dowel end
(aliphatic resins-wait 2 minutes before joining).

6. Tap dowel into hole with hammer and rock dowel back and forth until
it breaks off where scored.

7. Let the glue cure, then smooth dried area and prestart a new screw
hole with an awl or the like.

Sometimes, oversized screws have been used in previous repair.  You can
go back to the original size screws.

I have an old pencil sharpener which takes various larger diameter
crayons and markers and makes it easy to sharpen larger size dowel
stock.

Darwin L. Tuttle