DIY Rant...

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Can never find Back-plates for fastening 'stuff' to eg 18mm laminate panels...

Yes, beyond the surface veneer, the interior of such panels resembles compressed cork.

If your first fixing is hilariously small, looses grip or tears out, what do you do ?

I've variously resorted to drilling out, then glueing in a fat dowel, or tapping in a stubby 'hinge-plug', or screwing in a threaded insert for a short machine-screw, else thru-drilling and using a longer machine-screw.

Have added eight L-bracket castors to a *heavy* 50s-era dressing table thus, with three 'High Tensile' M4 flange-heads, 12mm OD washers and flange nuts per.

But, grab-handles on a semi-mobile kitchen unit ??
Fold-down handles per big tool-box or whatever, so the dozen L-bracket castors 'beast' may be coaxed.
But mounting the handles ?

U-bolts may be got with neat back plates, NOT stuff like grab-handles.
Nor are the fixing holes at *rational* spacings.

So, yet again, will have to thru-drill, affix using neatest-head machine screws and wide 'mending' washers...
Get the bolt-lengths just right, perhaps use 'Acorn' nuts to look tidier...

Oh, and may need to add bracket/plate reinforced batten reinforcement, to be sure, to be sure...

{Chuckle Mode}
So, how to work out the biggest repair-washers to match grab-handles ?
Trace out the grab-handle and its five (5) oddly positioned fixing holes, then:
A) Iterate wider and wider rings around said holes until, like bubbles, they touch.
Or...
B) Draw lines between fixing hole centres, then halve them...
( AKA 'Solve Simple, Code Clean' )
/
Now, getting ready for taxi to hospital Opth' appt.
With luck, they will finally declare my R-eye's retinal bleed resolved, allow me to get eye-test for Px lens in spectacles to suit that post-cataract now-long-sighted but still exasperatingly astigmatic eye.
Then join queue for L=eye's cataract op, as that is down to well-frosted, with only night / peripheral vision...

[warshipadmin]

My best find in the last decade was proper plasterboard inserts. These are large diameter large pitch self tapping plastic screws. You then screw a normal screw into the plastic screw. https://www.bunnings.com.au/ramset-nylo ... -6EALw_wcB

[kdahm]

No plumbing repair is complete without at least two or three trips to the hardware store. Except on very rare occasions when it can be finished with extra pieces sourced and not used from previous trips resulting from earlier projects.

[Craiglxviii]

Nik, you can buy specialist screws for chipboard (MFC- what all kitchen door and drawer frontages are made from).

They have very fat threads and usually twin-threads. That’s what all kitchen manufacturers use. Should be available from Amazon etc.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Even those, even those...

Edge-wise, can usually go a dozen mm deeper. 'Confirmat' as 'Plan_B'.
Face-wise, ~16mm of thread does not offer much margin for oopsies as-is.

[Belushi TD]

If I can't screw directly into a stud, I go with toggle bolts. Every time.

Pain in the ass to put in, but you never have to put them in more than once, assuming you do it right.

Belushi TD