Done it many, many times by carving out an over sized toothpick outta douglas fir...standard scrap 2X4 material.

'Tis softer than the wood stock and that's the point. Dipped in glue of choice it can be pounded into place and it will reach the bottom of the old hole due to the toothpick shape, completely filling it. Being softer it will compress and form to the old hole less any risk of splitting the stock as might happen with a hard wood "dowel".

The glue will set hard from the "clamping" of being pounded into the hole and will "lock" into place in the old screw threads.

The trick to keeping a drillbit from wandering is to drill a very small pilot hole first, then drill the hole size needed. Drillin' end grain with an 1/8" drill bit is a piece of cake anyway.....

I've many pads installed with course threaded galvanized dry wall screws, 1 5/8". They bite hard, they are way easy to drive in due to the deep phillips drive (way less likely to strip out as do the elcheapo screws included with a pad), and the bugle head centers itself up in the pads screw hole which locks the thing from moving sided to side.

I've carved the pegs, glued 'em in, drilled the holes, and installed the pad....all in about 5 minutes. 'Tis an easy fix.

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