Phillips head holding a bracket to a door frame, painted over at some point. The rubber band trick worked for maybe a quarter turn and then the band shredded and the head is now noticeably rounder than when I started. I've got a normal cordless drill, a basic bit set and no rotary tool. It's a wood screw so I can't just cut it flush and leave it, the bracket needs to come off.
For next time: manual impact driver. The kind you hit with a hammer. It converts a whack into a sharp rotational shock and it breaks loose paint-seized screws that no amount of leaning on a drill will move.
Also stop using the drill on the way out of stubborn screws. First movement should be by hand with a proper fitting screwdriver and your whole weight over it. Drills spin before they turn, and that's exactly how a head rounds.
If the extractor slips too, drill the head off. Pick a bit roughly the diameter of the head, drill straight down until the head separates, and the bracket lifts away. Then you've got a bare shank sticking out of the frame that you can grip with pliers and wind out properly.
Good method but go slow and keep the drill dead square, otherwise you wander sideways into the door frame and now you have a bigger job.
A few drops of valve grinding paste or even a pinch of fine sand in the recess gives the bit something to bite. Sounds like nonsense, adds a genuinely noticeable amount of friction. Cheap enough to keep a tube around.
@handy_orla · 8mo ago · 3 replies
Order of things to try, cheapest first.
Get the paint out of the recess. A sharp awl or a small nail and a tap of a hammer, then blow it out. Half of all stripped screws are actually paint filled screws and this alone sometimes fixes it.
Tap a Torx bit one size larger than looks right into the head with a hammer. T20 or T25 for a typical number 8 screw. The points bite into what's left of the recess and it grips shockingly well.
Screw extractor set, about £12. Reverse taper bit, run the drill in reverse, it digs in and backs the screw out. This is what they're for and it works.
Also, whatever you use, push hard. Most stripping is from not enough downward force, not from the wrong bit.
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@beatriz_moll · 8mo ago
The T25 tapped in worked on the first try. I had one in the set the whole time.
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@handy_orla · 8mo ago
It's the trick that makes you feel like a wizard for about a fiver. Keep a spare T20 and T25 in the drawer purely for sacrificing to stripped screws.
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