Bakelite Box Heck

[LarryLeveen]

The receptacle mounting holes in a bakelite electrical box in my house are stripped. This is a different box than the one I recently posted about. Replacing the box is a pain in the butt so I'd like to avoid doing that:

https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/loose-electrical-box-conundrum.73410/

Web searches for this problem only yielded a suggestion to coat screw threads in silicone, shove epoxy into the mounting holes and then remount the receptacles. I guess the idea is to have the screw threads shape the epoxy without bonding TO it (hence the silicone).

Thoughts on that or suggestions for another solution without replacing the box? I dunno how well bakelite would hold up to a drill-out and retap for a #8 screw. Thanks.

 

[Jadnashua]

If you have the right drill and tap, I'd consider filling the hole with epoxy, let it cure (5-minute stuff is fast!), then drill and tap it. If you didn't quite fill it, it would be easy to get the drill centered in the proper place. Bakelite, especially old stuff, can get pretty brittle.

 

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[FullySprinklered]

My go-to fix for buggered-up holes in a receptacle box is to use a 1 5/8 coarse thread drywall screw. Works most of the time on metal and blue plastic boxes. If you use it because you don't have a 6-32 and find one later, the drywall screw doesn't destroy all the threads molded into the box. You can back the coarse drywall screw out and install the proper electrical screw in it's place because you've only destroyed every other thread, or so.

Bakelite? That's old stuff. Plastics are heat-formed, so what I would try is this: start the drywall screw into the wallowed-out hole, heat it with a torch, buzz it in and out a few times with a cordless drill while it's still hot, rethreading it with the hot screw. Install the device with a drywall screw and reclaim your life.