I note in the recent news brief on BCER 1225, that there were a great many slotted head screws to remove. Sears sells some special screw extractors that are supposed to remove any damaged screw. Bob Vila has often advertised these. Has anyone ever used them? What were the results?

I dont know..
but I feel sorry for the extractor guy..
how many craftsman were involved in this incident?

Scot

I have a set of these. I used the tiny one last weekend. They do work, but in my experience only on small faseteners - mainly less than 1/4" diameter. It also depends on how rusted the bolt is to start with.

Greg

when in doubt, bring out the torch...haha

seriously, the guy's going to go through a lot of screw extractor bits with the large job he has ahead of him, but they should work. I bought a 3 piece set last year and they work fine for the small amount of screws i've had to extract so far. Just make sure to douse the offending screws with PB blaster/WD-40 and let it soak in before attempting to remove them.

Keep in mind that if you break off an extractor in
the hole the extractor is made of hardened steel
and is a bear to drill out.
I would probably try using a reverse twist
bit. Often the screw or bolt will come out
before you reach the bottom of the threads
as the drill heats up the screw and that
frees it up.
Get only the best quality drill bits, not some
cheap off shore knock offs. Money is
easier to get than the broken off bit removed.

They are worthless for anything above 1/4" and even then I have found that lots of PB Blaster or Liquid Wrench does better than extractors. Heat is the next thing and then a left hand twist drill bit will do a great job to help bring out stuck screws and bolts.

Many years ago I bought the small set and put them in my tool box. Hauled them out a few years ago to remove a broken exhaust manifold bolt. Soaked it in penetrating oil (another pet peeve of mine) and drilled the center out to the correct dimension. Inserted the easy-out and bing, it broke. The same thing happened a few weeks later with another one. Threw the last three away. My suggestion is to drill the broken bolt out and retap the hole.

Later!
Mr. Ed

The most important thing that simply must be done prior to the attempted removal of any fastner suspected to or known to be rusted in place would be the application of Kroil ( www.kanolabs.com ). Buy it direct from the manufacturer and be prepared to be amazed...if used properly that is. Many....in fact most times I have seen some sort of penetrating oil in use it is applied only minutes or at the most a half hour prior to a go at removing the stubborn fastner, this is a waste of product regardless of the manufacturer. Kroil when applied (say, the night before) carries itself throughout the threads and then(and here is what makes it diferent and dare I say...better!) the product goes to work, breaking down the rust....it beaks it down removing a good portion of the solid matter that is causing the interference. Versus all other products that at best simply deliver a light film of oil into the threads. Take WD-40 as an example, it's full name is "Water Displacement formula #40"....developed under a government contract for the purpose of preventing corrosion in the seams of all those missles once housed in silos across our country. So, as it turns out it, WD-40 also does some good for lightly siezed fastners.....and a product line was born.
Point of overall story, an extractor tool of any sort is only truely likely to be useful if the proper prep work is performed....with Kroil.

Don't forget the catalytic penetrant "rust busters" Jason. I have seen them loosen what Kroil wouldn't. Somebody once told me Kroil wouldn't climb into threads (while I was spraying it into the nest of superheater element T bolts and it was falling in my face).

There is a product out there that is sort of a tubular saw. It is chucked in a drill motor, and trepanns out the material from around the screw head, leaving the screwhead to be grabbed with vise grips and either removed or broken off. I have seen it used in wood, where the resulting hole is simply plugged for repair.

dave

Here is an experiment anyone can do...shows the "climbing potential" of various oils. Fill several containers(metal cups or such) with about an inch of different types of oils, then take several strips of rusty metal say 6 inches long and place them in the cups...the only one that will climb all the way to the end(over night) is the kroil. Also, kroil has the ability to work it's way into anything with more than a .000001 space through which it can flow.
An example, a really good example of what this product has the ability to do was made evident to me by the air brake shop foreman of the White Pass. He came by a monkey wrench frome the steam era of the railroad....either out of a boiler or a tender tank...either way it was rusted into a solid mass. He soaked this wrench in kroil for a week and a half or so and in that time the kroil freed everything, to the point that it is a usable state...well, with the exception of the fact I would not trust the threads of the adjusting post to carry much of a load but everything moves like it should at the very least.

Kroil, The Oil That Creeps ;-)

Kroil is a great tool and I have used it numerous times in our museum shop as well as at home. It still isnt a total solution to rusted or seized bolts and nuts. If you have the time to wait on it, it does work some of the time just like PB Blaster or Liquid Wrench. The ones that are really stuck its time to get the heat out and I dont mean cut them off I mean put the rosebud on or a good heating tip on your torch and bring it up to a cherry red on the nut and then remove it. If your dealing with a bolt that is in a casting or such heat the area around the bolt not the bolt itself. You may have to do this a couple of times to get the desired results of breaking the bond between the two items. Go slow and dont get in a hurry with the heat.

Many years ago I wrote an article in an old cars publication and I won't bore you with it but the bottom line is if it doesn't penetrate or stay an oil it won't break rust. Want to see if your product works? Spray or drip it on a piece of metal and come back in a day or two and see if it is still there. Most of the so-called penetrating oils aren't and don't. Aren't oils and won't penetrate. What I found is that the stuff evaporates too quickly to be of any real use.

Later!
Mr. Ed