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I have two 1/4" holes in a 3/16" thick steel plate (part of a truck rack). I want to fill the holes with steel, but I don't have a welder.

How can I fill in the holes?

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I can fill the holes with a large sheet metal screw. And grind down both ends of the screw to make it flush with the plate.

The side with the pointy ends of the screws:

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The side with the heads of the screws:

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The screws were oversized for the hole. It took a lot of force to get the screws into the holes.

I tried using a cordless impact driver to insert the screws, but it wasn't powerful enough. So I used a screw bit with a ratchet instead. That worked well for the first screw. But with the second screw, the head of the screw broke off before the screw was fully inserted into the hole.

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Note: I would suggest using a socket-to-screw-bit adapter that is magnetic or snaps into place, instead of a regular 1/4" socket that only loosely slides onto the bit. A proper adapter would have prevented the screw bit from falling out of the adapter, which was a nuisance.

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    This seems like a good short term solution, but I bet overtime they will loosen and fall out. That would be due to both vibration as well as corrosion. A spot of paint might help both conditions.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Sep 7 at 17:52

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