I bought three house shutters at a junk shop, with the plan to hinge them together to make a screen. They were full of shabby chic character. From being left outside, they were peeling a lot and two colors were visible – white outer layer and a green underlayer. I tried to leave most of the loose paint chips at the junk store, but they were in need of serious scraping. I scraped first… then I power washed. They had cool rusty, painted iron hooks and do-dads for hanging on a house. The do-dad stuck out about four inches and I figured I’d be able to unscrew them after getting the paint off the screw heads. The wood was soft and I expected they would come out easily. Sure was wrong about that.
I upgraded my screwdriver to a drill. Still no luck. So I googled to learn about screw extractors. I knew they existed but had no real idea how they worked. Looked like something I could do. You drill into the center of the reluctant screws and then tap the extractor in; grab them with pliers and screw the shebang out. Sounded simple enough, although wouldn’t I need some kind of special bit to drill into the head of a metal screw? Well it worked on the internet…At Ace Hardware I found an extractor packaged with a drill bit for about $4 – so I figured it must be the right kind and size of bit. But I never got the hang of making it work. Zero screws extracted.
At this point, out of ideas, I figured my little screen project, in which I’d invested quite a bit of time already, was dead in the water. Sheesh. Unless…unless I can just whack them with a hammer and eventually break off the piece that sticks out. With nothing to lose, I whacked first one way and then the other. They all broke, solving my problem. Nothing like the finesse of a hammer.
I upgraded my screwdriver to a drill. Still no luck. So I googled to learn about screw extractors. I knew they existed but had no real idea how they worked. Looked like something I could do. You drill into the center of the reluctant screws and then tap the extractor in; grab them with pliers and screw the shebang out. Sounded simple enough, although wouldn’t I need some kind of special bit to drill into the head of a metal screw? Well it worked on the internet…At Ace Hardware I found an extractor packaged with a drill bit for about $4 – so I figured it must be the right kind and size of bit. But I never got the hang of making it work. Zero screws extracted.
At this point, out of ideas, I figured my little screen project, in which I’d invested quite a bit of time already, was dead in the water. Sheesh. Unless…unless I can just whack them with a hammer and eventually break off the piece that sticks out. With nothing to lose, I whacked first one way and then the other. They all broke, solving my problem. Nothing like the finesse of a hammer.