That trumpet case again... The latch holes were routed out with rounds on either end. Hard to match that. So I decided to chisel them out square.
I did a fair job of it, but not perfect. There's a little irregularity to the holes. Because of where the new hardware needs to sit to look right, I have to put one of the new fasteners through this area, and the only thing holding that side of the latch in place will be the piece of wood that plugs this hole. It needs to be stuck in there right and tight.
It's oak plywood about 1/2" thick. Has some voids, and it's decidedly splintery from where they sewed vinyl onto the edges of this thing with some huge ass don't-want-to-put-my-finger-in-front-of-THAT-needle sewing machine. (A sewing machine that can punch a needle through 1/2 of oak plywood about ten times per inch gets all the respect it wants from me. That ain't yer grandma's Singer, folks.)
So anyway... I'm thinking to lay a piece of paper across the hole and do a rubbing so I can carefully fit something to all the slight irregularities. I want to aim for a good press fit, but even at that, the other side of this (the splintery, voidy oak ply) isn't the best for achieving a good glue joint. The forces at play here will be trying to pull this plug straight out of the hole from the top.
Maybe chamfer it so that it's smaller at the outside (the top) than the inside? I have a little room to play, but not much. One side of this hole is close to the joint between the bottom and the lid, and there's only about 1/4" of wood there, with a lip on it, so it's mostly rather thin.
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