A stuck screw can prove to be the ultimate nuisance, the proverbial “thorn in one’s side” as craftsmen strive to complete a project or repair. Stuck and stubborn screws are generally caused by rust and corrosion that accumulates and sticks around the screw’s body. To release the screw, you must break it loose from the corrosion that binds it. To achieve this breakaway, try these five sure-fire extraction methods and you should have that stuck screw un-stuck in no time.

1.) Chemical Removal: Chemical removal methods are the first, most gentle techniques to try. To dissolve the binding corrosion you can apply a number of easily accessible products: lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide, and even Coke or Pepsi can loosen a stuck screw. Any anti-corrosive solution works better when left to soak into the screw-hole, because of this, even if the chemical doesn’t release the screw, it softens it up for the next removal step(s). If you tap the screw while applying rust remover, it may help the chemical to penetrate further into the screw-hole releasing more of the screw. Once you’ve let your solution set into the screw, attempt to loosen it once more. Remember not to use a solution that could stain or damage the material housing your frozen screw.

2.) By Force/Impact: Before beginning this process be certain you have the correct sized screwdriver. A wrong sized screwdriver can strip the head off your frozen screw and amplifty the supreme annoyance of screw extraction. If you can move the screw at all try to tighten it – in doing so you may break the screw free from the corrosion holding it in place. If you can’t move the screw but its head is slightly elevated, you may be able to grip, and turn the screw with vice grips or pliers. If, however, the screw’s head is not sticking up, you may try inserting the screwdriver in the the screw’s head slots. Lock your pliers or vice grips to the top of the screwdriver shaft, and while keeping downward pressure on the screwdriver, and using the vice grips as leverage, try turning the screw. This additional leverage/force may break it free. You may also try hitting the screwdriver with a hammer (while the screwdriver is inserted into the screw’s head). Remember to do this lightly so as to not destroy the tip of your screwdriver. If you can, also try hitting the screwdriver while turning it – this combination of impact and rotation should break the screw free from adhesion.

3.) Heat/Cold: Before using temperature extraction methods, be certain the material housing the screw can withstand temperature changes. That said, you can use a propane or butane torch to heat and consequently expand the screw. You can also use a soldering iron or even a hot glue gun (without glue) to heat up a frozen screw. The expansion should allow you joggle and reverse the screw free. If the material around the screw can not tolerate heat, cold temperatures, although less effective, may work for you. Keep ice on the screw’s head – if accessible, dry ice is most effective. When the screw is sufficiently cold try turning again. Note: If you choose to heat up your screw – don’t apply lubricating oils (as they are flammable) to the screw until it has entirely cooled. You may need to repeat heat and cold cycles several times to break the screw loose. Always be mindful when using temperature extraction methods – both can cause severe burns when not careful.

4.) Destruction: If you absolutely have to get the screw out, and it still has not budged, you can attempt to destroy the screw. These methods are generally reserved for last resorts and craftsmen must be mindful to keep the screw hole intact. If the screw hole becomes damaged it is much more difficult to replace that stuck, rusted, and stubborn screw. First: place a steel punch or small chisel slightly off-center in the screw’s head-slots. Repeatedly hit (with a hammer) the top of the punch or chisel counter-clockwise (remember, righty tighty – lefty loosy). Several impacts should effectively loosen the screw. You may also try drilling out the screw. When drilling out a screw, keep your drill bit dead-center. If you have access to left handed drill bits these put more turning pressure on the stuck screw as it turns. Eventually the screw should begin to turn and release.

5.) Drastic Measures: These are definitely last resorts, however, screws with a totally stripped or broken head may be impossible to remove without a “screw extractor.” A screw extractor is a marvelous little device (only about $5 – $10) with a square head and reverse tapered cutting screw threads on the other end. The square head is built to be fastened to a T Handle but also works with an adjustable wrench or vice grips. After a pilot hole has been pre-drilled into the stuck screw, the counter-clockwise threads are designed to screw backward into the screw’s body. The extractor digs into the damaged screw, begins to turn it, and ,at last, releases it from the grasps of corrosion. Be extremely cautious not to break-off the screw extractor inside your stuck screw. If this happens, you’re basically, well… stuck. If a screw extractor can’t get the job done, and you are now more hell-bent than ever to get that screw out, there is one last option. Spark erosion. Spark erosion, or electrical discharge machining is a technique that utilizes rapid repetitions of electrical discharge to disintegrate metals. This method effectively melts, or dissolves the screw while leaving the screw hole and surrounding materials unharmed and intact. Spark erosion machines are truly impressive, but are also pretty difficult to gain access to. In order to utilize spark erosion you must find a service that provides this type of machining. In the long run it may not be worth the hassle. Keep trying, show that screw who’s the boss, and persistence will prove the most effective method for success.

Removing stuck screws can be an immeasurable hassle, but one of these methods is bound to loosen that pesky screw. Good luck, and always be cautious!

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There are several steps to consider in the process of edge-gluing lumber including (1) lumber selection, (2) cutting to rough length, (3) ripping, (4) jointing, (5) grain matching, (6) biscuit joining, (7) gluing, (8) clamping and (9) thickness sanding. Just how you go about these steps depends on the condition of the lumber, the capacity of your machinery and the final size of the glue-up.

LUMBER SELECTION:

If at all possible, try to have all boards in the glue-up out of the same tree. If that is not possible, select lumber that is of similar color and grain pattern. To my mind, the ideal glue-up looks like one, extremely wide board with the glue joints barely visible to the naked eye. Since this only an ideal, I always try to get as close to it as possible.

Another, less-important goal would be to have all boards in the glue-up of the same approximate width. I am not suggesting ripping the wider boards down to match the narrowest board as this would be a terrible waste of expensive lumber. I do suggest, however, ripping extremely wide boards in two to minimize the possibility of curling due to changes in humidity after delivery.

Straight or ribbon grain makes the best homogeneous final appearance while wavy or swirly grain makes for an interesting but more difficult glue-up. Swirly grain will require orientation of the individual boards to minimize the number of places that the grain line suddenly stops at the glue line rather than appearing to continue into another swirl in the adjacent board. This orientation is highly subjective.

CROSS-CUTTING TO ROUGH LENGTH

I always rough-cut my lumber into lengths an inch longer than the length of the final product. This allows the entire glue-up to be neatly trimmed to size after the glue is dry. It also makes the ripping and jointing process a lot easier as I will explain below. The same is true for the width of the glue up: Make sure it is about an inch wider than the final product after trimming.

RIPPING

Kiln or air-dried lumber often decides to bow into a curve as it dries and this must be corrected before a glue-up can be accomplished. If my finished glue-up is only 3 feet long and it is coming out of a 14-foot bowed board, it will be far easier and economical to get the curve out of the 3-foot pieces than it would to remove the curve from the entire 14-foot board before cross cutting. This is one reason that you should always do your rough cross-cutting before ripping and jointing. Another reason is that a 14-foot, 2″ thick x 12″ wide board is pretty difficult to control on a jointer or table saw.

If there is a bow in one or more of your rough-cut pieces, those pieces should first have the curved edges ripped off on the table saw. The concave side of the board should always be towards the fence. Measure from the fence out to the outside of the end of the board that is nearest the fence and set the fence to cut this width. Once you have trimmed off the convex side of the board, flip it over side-to-side and find the point where the outer edge of the board is closest to the fence (somewhere near the middle) and rip the board to that width. When all boards have been ripped straight, take them to the jointer.

JOINTING

The jointing process should now be fairly easy in that the boards have been ripped straight. Take shallow depth cuts to minimize the possibility of tear-out. In loose-grained lumber with a lot of swirls on the face side, tear-out is sometimes unavoidable. If this happens, try running the board over the jointer head in the opposite direction. If the tear-outs persist, you will have no other option than to rip the tear-outs away on the table saw. You will then have a sawn edge in your glue-up. If you have a clean-cutting table saw blade like a recently sharpened Forrest Woodworker II, this should not be much of a problem, especially if you plan on using a biscuit joiner to secure your glue-up. You probably won’t be able to tell which glue lines are jointed and which are ripped in the final product.

GRAIN MATCHING

Lay out all the boards on your work bench and arrange them for best appearance. Obviously, if one side of the final product will show more than the other in a piece of furniture, then you will want to have the best-looking sides all on that side of the glue-up. Examples of this would be table tops and cabinet doors. You also must orient the boards so that the glue-lines are not accentuated, as discussed in the paragraph on lumber selection above.

BISCUIT JOINING

Whenever possible, make sure that you biscuit-join your glue-ups. I say, “Whenever possible” because you will not be able to use a biscuit joiner on very thin lumber. On the other hand, very thin lumber (3/8″, for instance) does not usually have enough strength to pop open a joint. So, with very thin lumber, you will simply be using glue without biscuits. With regard to lumber ¾” or thicker, I have seen a number of table tops, cabinet doors and cabinet casings open up along a glue line after delivery. At this point, repairs are difficult or impossible so the extra step of biscuit joining is well worth the minor time and expense. Look on it as major headache insurance! If you don’t yet own a biscuit joiner, there are a number of great machines out there including Porter Cable, Lamello and Freud. There are also two good alternatives to using a biscuit jointer: Those are the Festool Domino floating tenon joiner and the Freud Doweling Joiner. Different methods, same result.

When you have your boards laid out the way you want them in the glue-up, make sure all the ends are flush and the edge joints are touching. Double-check to make sure the glue-up will be about an inch wider than the final product after trimming. With a builder’s square or a straightedge mark a pencil line in 4″ in from each end of the rough glue-up across the grain, crossing all glue lines but not continuing over the side edges of the glue-up. Make a similar pencil line across the grain at the mid-point of the boards. Make additional pencil lines half-way between the other pencil lines until all pencil lines are about 6″ apart.

Mark the boards on one end “A”,”B”,”C” or “1″,”2″,”3″, etc. so that you can put them back together in the same order when it is time to glue them up. Put the boards aside and nail, screw or clamp a stop board (scrap) to the bench top, left to right in front of you and about a foot in from the edge of the bench. As you are applying pressure with the biscuit jointer, while making mortises for the biscuits, this stop board will keep the board you are mortising from moving away from you. Make a mortise wherever a pencil line touches a board edge on every board.

GLUE-UP AND CLAMPING

There are two ways to clamp up a glue-up: horizontally on the bench top and vertically with the first board mortised-edge-up in a woodworking vise on the end or side of the bench. In the case of horizontal glue up, place pipe or bar clamps about 2 feet apart on the bench top with the clamp handles hanging slightly over the edge of the bench. Pre-adjust the clamps to an inch larger opening than they will be when tightened. Place the first board on edge on top of and across the clamps with the mortises facing up. Do the same with all the boards, in order. Make sure you have sufficient biscuits for the job ready.

A small dispensing glue bottle with sufficient glue for the job should be within easy reach. The type of glue is important: If the glue dries too quickly you will have big problems and if the glue dries too slowly, you will be losing valuable production time. I like to use Franklin Titebond Glue indoors or Franklin Titebond II for outdoor applications. These are “aliphatic resin” type glues that can be easily cleaned up with water. Ether formula gives a very strong joint and has a reasonable, 45-minute clamping time. Both of these glues are widely available in hardware stores, home improvement centers and woodworking stores.

Run about a 1/8″-thick glue line down the center of the edge of the first board, making sure that the glue drops into every biscuit mortise along the way. Then apply short glue lines on both sides of every mortise. This should result in sufficient glue so that it appears squeezed out of both sides of every glue joint after clamping. Insert a biscuit into each mortise. With 2″ lumber, you may need an extra glue line for the full length of the joint. There is no such thing as too much glue because you can wipe up the excess with a wet rag. There is, however such a thing as not enough glue and you will recognize that condition when you see that glue is not being squeezed out of the full length of both sides of the glue joint. That is called “starving the joint” and starved joints often open up later. Glue is cheap! Don’t skimp on it!

Lay down the first board with the letter or number up and the mortised edge away from you. Apply glue in the same manner to each succeeding board wherever there are mortises and place biscuits in the far edge of each board, except, of course the last board.

The board ends should be flush and the left clamp should be about 6″ in from the end. The right clamp should be about 1-foot six inches in from the right end. This is because you will be placing alternately spaced clamps on the top side of the glue-up so that there is a clamp (top or bottom) about every foot. The top, right clamp will be in about 6″ from the right end.

Once you have all of this in place, start tightening the clamp handles. Clamp all the bottom clamps finger tight, then the top clamps finger tight. Then, go down the row of clamps tightening them fully, bottom, top, bottom, top, etc. With a wet rag, wipe off most of the excess glue. Turn over the entire glue-up and wipe the other side. Look at your watch or clock and add 45 minutes to the time. This will be the minimum clamping time, any time after which you may remove the glue-up from the clamps. Mark this time on the glue-up with a felt pen. If you have multiple glue-ups, you can stand this glue-up against a wall to get it out of the way while it dries.

If you have been paying attention to the above, then you can figure out how to do a vertical glue-up in a vise which is suitable for smaller glue-ups and is easier to manage. The difference is that when it comes time to apply the glue, you will clamp the first board at its center in the vise with the mortises facing up. Apply the glue and biscuits. Apply glue to the mating edge of the second board and place it in correct orientation on top of the first board, and so on. Place the first clamp 6″ in from the end, in front, the second clamp a foot away from the first clamp, in back and so on.

Once your glue-up is out of the clamps, it is ready to be thickness sanded either in a drum sander or wide-belt sander. If you don’t have either of these machines, don’t worry. Most professional furniture-manufacturing shops in your area will be happy to thickness sand your glue-ups for an hourly rate. You might want to consider buying your own drum sander or wide-belt sander, if you can justify the expense.

It is best to know the maximum width capacity of the sanding machine you will be using: 48″-wide glue-ups will not pass through a 36″-wide sander. If you know that you will have this limitation in advance, simply make two, 24″ glue-ups and glue those together with biscuits after the thickness sanding is complete. The glue line won’t be perfectly even and so it will have to be sanded true with a random orbit sander. Your glue-up should be sanded to at least 150 grit. 220 grit is even better. Trim the glue-up on the table saw to its final dimensions, rout the edges, if appropriate, and then random orbit sand the final piece to 220 or 320 grit before finishing.

For some woodworkers, gluing up lumber may not be the most interesting part of the craft. It is one of the most important, however, because a glue-up done incorrectly can be a recipe for disaster. Furthermore, the way you orient the boards in the glue-up will have a lasting and irreversible effect of the beauty of the finished project.

Bob Gillespie

Woodworker

©2010 Robert M. Gillespie, Jr.

Computer Disposal

Welding Certification tests are numbered by position and joint type. For instance a 1 G indicates a flat position groove weld. The 1 means flat position, and the G indicates a groove weld.

I saw a video the other day that advertised a  mobile welding lab that was used to train and certify welders. 

A few students as well as the instructor were  interviewed and described the 8 weeks of welding training  that led up to welding certification tests in the 1G position.

What?

That’s right, 8 weeks of welding training per process to be able to certify in a 1 G weld test.

I don’t get it. After 8 weeks of training in a welding process, why can’t the welder pass some other positions like 3G and 4G welding tests? 

Did you know that a 3G plate test combined with a 4G plate test certifies a welder in ALL positions?

That’s all positions. Like 1G , 2G, 3G, and 4G. as well as every position of fillet welds imaginable too.

A 1G welding test certifies a welder to weld in how many positions? One ! that’s it …just one.

You get a lot more bang for your buck by training welders to certify in both the 3G and 4G positions.

Another issue is that 1G welding tests typically don’t have very good pass rates.

You know why?

Gravity. That’s right., gravity is working against you and not for you. Gravity lets the slag flow ahead of the arc on a 1G welding test and if you are not careful, it can cause cold lap and slag inclusions.

Gravity works For you and not against you on a 3G vertical plate welding test. 

Gravity keeps the flux behind the arc. The arc is then allowed to do its thing and penetrate into the base metal. As long as you maintain enough amperage and a tight arc, things will go well on a 3G vertical plate test.

The AWS (American Welding Society) classifies the 1G position welding test as the easiest.

I disagree with that when it comes to beveled groove welds.

I believe 2G horizontal and 3G vertical welding certification tests have better pass rates when it comes to a bend test or x ray testing.

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Sometimes, a little bit of muscle is all you need. If that’s the case, then perhaps a small bulldozer is all you really need. Now, when you say small bulldozer, I’m assuming your not actually looking for a skid steer or a bobcat. Since those are really different machines. Mind you, they can do some of the same stuff, just not on the same scale as a real bulldozer, even if it is a small one. When I say small, I’m thinking of a d2, d3, or d4 Caterpillar sized bulldozer. That’s still a pretty good sized machine, great for clearing trees or piles of dirt and wood from the farm.

You’d be surprised at some of the great prices you can get these for during the tough economic times, if you look around a bit. As long as the dozer has been maintained well, you should get quite a few good years out of even a used machine. That said, you may want to hedge your bet by sticking with the more reliable brand names when you buy. Caterpillar is likely the best know, and uses the same technology for it’s big industrial strength dozers, as it does for it’s smaller ones, so you should be safe with them.

Other good manufacturers to consider, are Case, New Holland, Komatsu, John Deere, and Liebherr. They all produce good dozers. If you can, ask for a maintenance log, used by the previous owner of the machine. First of all, if they have a maintenance log, that’s a very good sign. It suggests that they were doing at least minimum upkeep on their dozer. Secondly, it should give you a pretty good idea of what you’ll need to do to keep your little dozer running.

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