Relocating Holes for Door Strike Plate

The strike plate where it needs to be – holes are just slightly off

After I replaced the strike plate for the door knob on an exterior door, I found that the predrilled screw holes were slightly too far forward. You can’t simply drill new holes, because the new holes are too close to the old ones. This article describes a trick to relocating holes like this, by fill in the old holes and fix the problem.

Required Tools and Supplies

Required items are a drill, chisel, wood glue, and dowel

To do this job, you’ll need some kind of dowel rod to fill the old holes. I went with some bamboo skewers we had in the pantry. You also need wood glue, a chisel, and of course a drill.

Drill bit matching the size of the wood skewer or dowel

You also need to be sure you have a drill bit that is the same diameter as your filler skewer/dowel or slightly larger.

Drill Out Old Holes

Drill out the old holes to the correct diameter

More likely than not, your skewer/dowel is not the exact same size as the old hole. Therefore, the next step is to use your drill to enlarge the old holes slightly, so the skewer/dowel will fit.

Fill Old Holes

Add a decent amount of glue to the skewer

Skewer in place

Add some glue to the skewer and stick it a few inches into the old hole. Have a damp rag or paper towel handy to wipe up glue that squeezes out. It will stick out, but this is fine. Leave it for now. The glue needs to dry fully, which should take several hours.

Allow the glue to fully dry

Clean Up Filler

Side cutters or similar can trim the skewers almost flush

Ready for chisel work

Once the glue is fully dry, the skewers can be trimmed down. I used a set of side cutters first, just to get them near to flush. If the dowel you’re using is too thick for these, you can always use an oscillating multitool or something similar.

Chisel works great to make the ends flush

Totally done

A chisel does a great job trimming the remaining cutoff flush.

Finish Relocating Holes

Fresh holes for the latch, just slightly to the left of the old ones

Strike plate fixed

At this point, you can drill the new holes that you need. In my case, you can see that the strike plate mounting holes are just to the left of the old ones. With the filler material in place, it’s easy to drill new holes exactly where they’re needed.