Grub screw head damaged

[simonc]

Hullo armourers,

I've searched the archives and I'm surprised this question hasn't been asked to date:

I have a severely damaged grub screw head in a German foil barrel. Essentially, the slot has been sheared off from the screw.

There is a little of the head still sitting proud of the barrel, but I doubt that I could (for example) Dremel a new slot.

Does anyone have any tricks to share to get the screw out of the barrel? This is an as-new barrel assembly and I'd rather not junk it due to a *tiny* leetle piece of grub screw...

[sallearmourer]

Okay here what you do take a sharp ulitly knife that as a sharp blade in it and cut a new grove in the screw head slight depress the tip and slowing work the screw out. I am having a 97% sucess rate using this method.

Tim

[Purple Fencer]

Dang it, Tim! You beat me to it!

Just take...your...time. it's sometimes REALLY difficult to get enough bite to turn the screw.

[neevel]

Ditto what Tim said-- if you've still got a bit of screw above the barrel, that's probably the best route.

If the screw has truly been smashed flush with the barrel, then you're s.o.l.-- you may be able to drill it out with a dremel and save the tip, but the barrel will be a goner, and you'll need to rewire.

With German points, you need to be pretty diligent about checking the condition of the screws regularly, and replacing screws as soon as the start to show damage-- completely mashed screws are sometimes the result of several hits, rather than a single hard one.


I've spent a bit of time looking at some online watch-repair tool vendors ( <a href="http://www.shorinternational.com" target="_blank">www.shorinternational.com</a> is one). There are tools for extracting small screws from watches and small taps for dealing with a damaged thread (losing a $6000 Rolex to a damaged screw is far worse than losing a foil barrel). If I can learn what the thread size German foil tip screws are, and if the screw extractor tool would work on a foil barrel, it might be a solution to the problem.

-Dave