Saturday, April 4, 2015

CBG broken screw removal

While mounting the Hardtail bridge on my latest CBG I had a bit of an issue, one of the mounting screws broke off just bellow the surface of the box. There wasn't anything to grab a hold of so I was stuck....
I remembered seeing a tool to fix this kind of problem and an online search found what I remembered. It is called a "Hollow Screw Extractor" they can be found easily on line. I didn't want to wait so I spent most of a day driving around the nearest town with more than one hardware store looking for one. 3 hardware stores a tractor supply store and a craft store later and I came up empty. It is a simple tool, just a metal tube with teeth on the end, kind of a miniature hole saw. While I was at the craft store I saw what I needed 6mm tubes sold as a miniature wind chime kit. I picked that up along with a 1/4" hardwood dowel.

The Chime kit.

I used the corner of a metal file to cut teeth into the end of the tube. They aren't perfect and don't need to be to cut wood.


I tried it on a piece of scrap oak. The scratches to the right of the hole were my first attempt, the cutter wanted to wander around. I drilled a shallow pilot hole to get it started and it worked well. I was leaning on the drill a bit to hard and it broke through the back of the scrap. I'm glad I tested it in scrap first. 
 This is the broken off screw head next to the hole with the rest of the screw in it.

Success! The end of the broken screw is visible in the end of the plug. The 6mm tube cut a hole slightly smaller than my 1/4" dowel, so I ran a 1/4" bit through the hole to get it to the right size.

I cut a piece of dowel slightly shorter than the depth of the hole. Glued up the dowel and started it in the hole.

I pushed the dowel down flush with the top of the box and cleaned up the excess glue with a damp cloth.

The repair will be hidden under the bridge. I'll let the glue dry over night then remount the bridge with the new screws I picked up today.

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