Old bracket holes in my door frame - fill with putty alone or scrap wood first?

I've done this a few times on old frames and the glue-in wood plug is the only thing that's lasted for me. I had similar lag screw holes from a closer on my back door, around the same size, and the first time I just packed them with regular filler. Looked fine for a season, then one of them sunk in and cracked along the edge where the door kept brushing past it. Filler that thick has nothing behind it and it just can't hold up somewhere it gets knocked.

Second time around I cut a plug from an offcut of pine, whittled it roughly round with a knife, tapped it in with wood glue and a hammer, and let it sit overnight. Planed or chiseled it flush the next day, then a thin skim of filler just to hide the grain and any gaps around the edge. Sanded, primed, painted. That was about six years ago and you'd never know it was there now.

A dowel from the hardware store works too if the hole is close to a standard size, I just find a hand-cut plug lets you match the grain direction better so it doesn't show as a obvious circle under paint. Whittle it slightly oval rather than perfectly round so it bites tight. Deep holes are exactly the case where you want real wood in there, not a half inch of filler trying to be a beam.

I've had the opposite result with plugs on my own frames. I glued dowels into old hinge screw holes on a bedroom door a few years back and the seasonal movement in that old softwood frame worked one of them loose. The frame just flexes too much for rigid wood in my house.

What's worked for me since is a two-part filler, the car body kind like Bondo, or a proper wood epoxy if you can find it. It sets up hard, doesn't shrink like water-based filler does, and you can fill a half inch hole in one go. I patched a similar set of holes on my kitchen frame about four years ago, sanded it back, painted it, and it still looks solid even where the door swings close.

The trick is to rough up the inside of the hole a bit first so it has something to bite into, and go slightly proud with the fill becasue it sands down harder than regular filler. Regular filler over a deep hole will sink no matter how many layers you build, but epoxy cures without that shrinkage. If the frame is really old and crumbly around the hole, the epoxy alone might not have much to grip, so a hybrid coud make sense. But for a decent frame I'd skip the hammer and chisel work and just mix up a batch.

Not sold on the oval plug bit. Carving one tight enough to wedge in is how you end up splitting old frame timber, and one of these holes is right where the door swings nearest the frame, the exact spot you don't want sideways pressure going into the wood. A split there means a much bigger repair than a hole.

I'd just drill both holes out clean and round to match a dowel, glue in something slightly oversized and cut it flush once it's set. No hammering, the glue does the holding. And under a coat of paint grain direction means nothing, so I never got that part of the argument either.

Whatever you fill it with, prime the bare plug wood before the topcoat or it'll flash through as a dull patch. Old frames like that ussually have decades of paint built up, and a fresh pine plug soaks up paint differently than the surrounding layers, so even a perfect flush repair shows itself in the right light. I use a shellac-based primer on any bare softwood patches now after a radiator-side plug on my stairs came back yellowish through two coats of white. Also agree with the earlier point about keeping that latch-side hole flush, not proud, since even a hair of extra material there will catch the door edge every time.

I hang doors for a living and the first thing I'd do before any filling is poke a screwdriver into both holes and press hard. Lag fixings hold a closer tight to the frame and rain or condensation runs down and sits in those holes for years. On a job last month the lower fixing on a front door frame was soft for a good inch around the hole, and no filler or plug would have lasted in timber like that. If yours feel solid, any of the fixes above will do. If they're punky, dig the crumbly stuff back to sound wood and sort that out before you worry about the cosmetic layer.