I was inspired to put this post together when searching for ways to remove a broken screw recently – there are so many different tricks that I thought it would be fun to collect them all in the same place. I have tried to put them in order of try-ability, with those that use tools you probably already have at the top.

First of all, are you dealing with a stripped screw or a broken one? A stripped screw is where the slots in the head have become worn and rounded so that the screwdriver can’t grip it and looks like this:

A broken screw is one where the head has sheared off, and looks like this:

If you have a broken screw then the techniques for dealing with a stripped screw won’t help you, so click here to jump down to the methods for broken screws. On the other hand, if you have a stripped screw, then you can use any of the techniques on this page so just start reading.

Methods for stripped screws

These mostly involve ways to improve the amount of grip that you can get on the screw head with a screwdriver. They often work well in combination – try heating the screw to loosen it, followed by using the rubber band trick.

Tap or heat the screw to loosen it

The idea here is to loosen the screw so that you can use what little grip remains in the head to unscrew it. Tapping can help to free a seized screw, while heating a metal screw can loosen it by making the metal expand then contract. To loosen the screw by tapping, place the tip of a screwdriver in the screw head (as if you were going to turn it) then tap the butt of the screwdriver with a hammer. To loosen it by heating, place the tip of a hot soldering iron in the screw head and press down for a few seconds.

Drill a small hole in the centre of the screw

By drilling a hole just a couple of millimetres deep in the middle of the screw head, you can allow the tip of your screwdriver to go deeper in the head and get a little bit more grip. Use a very small drill bit that will work on metal. A Dremel is perfect for this job, using a drill bit like this one.

Use a rubber band to get more grip

This one is simple; just place a rubber band over the screw head and unscrew it normally. The rubber can help to give just enough extra grip to get the screw to turn.

Use aluminum carbide or valve grinding paste

The idea here is the same as above – give the screwdriver a little more grip on the screw head. Just spread a little of the paste into the slots in the screw head and unscrew as normal.

Use a hammer to reshape the slots in the screw head

An unsophisticated trick Seat the tip of a screwdriver in the screw head and whack the base of the screwdriver with a hammer. This is only likely to work on screws made out of soft metal (but hey, maybe that’s the reason they get stripped in the first place!)

Use a flat-head screwdriver on a cross-head screw

Sometimes a flat-head screwdriver can get a better grip on a stripped cross-head screw than the correct screwdriver can get, due to the way that cross-head screws are designed to “cam-out”. Use plenty of pressure to keep the screwdriver seated.

Use a screwdriver bit that’s too big

Very similar to the trick above. Instead of using a flat-head screwdriver, use a cross-head screwdriver, but pick a size that’s too big for the screw. If the slots have been worn, this can often give a better grip than using the correct size.

Use a steel punch to hit the screw off-center

This is only likely to work on screws that have a large head. Take a small hardened steel punch and use it to hit the screw off-centre so that it rotates anti-clockwise. This sometimes works to start a screw moving; as soon as it’s loosened, move on to one of the other methods.

Methods for broken screws

Grip the screw with a pair of pliers and turn it

If the screw isn’t secured too tightly, and there’s enough of it protruding, you may be able to get enough purchase with a normal pair of pliers to remove it. Be sure to clamp the screw in the sample place with the pliers each time you grip it so you don’t round off the screw.

Of course, the more leverage you can get to grip the screw with the better, so if you’ve got a pair of pliers with long handles and an adjustable jaw like these ones, then use them.

And if you are lucky enough to have a pair of locking pliers (AKA vise grips, vice grips, or mole grips, depending on where you live) then you can use them to apply much more pressure and to clamp down on the screw while you turn it.

Clamp the screw shaft in a drill chuck and turn slowly

The chuck of a drill is designed to hold the shaft of a drill bit securely, so it often also does a pretty good job of holding the shaft of a broken screw. Tighten up the chuck of the drill as hard as you can around the screw – you will need both hands for this so get someone to help by holding the drill in place as you do it. Don’t plug the drill in until you’ve finished clamping the screw, and make sure it’s in reverse  before you turn it on. Any cheap drill should work for this, or you can also use an electric screwdriver if it has a chuck. Don’t try this trick with a rotary tool like a Dremel – they are designed for high-speed, low-torque so will be useless (but if you have a Dremel, see the next method!)

Use a Dremel to cut a slot in the screw

If there is enough of the screw protruding above the surface it’s screwed into, you can use a Dremel or other rotary tool with a cut-off bit to cut a slot directly into the shaft, which you can then unscrew with a flat-head screwdriver. Use this type of cutting wheel and make the cut as straight as you can.

If there is plenty of shaft visible, then you can do the same with a hacksaw, but it’s much trickier – you’ll need a very narrow blade and a steady hand.

Use epoxy to glue a nut onto the end

Two-part epoxy glue forms an incredibly strong bond, so you can use it to glue something onto the end of the screw that will give you enough grip to turn it. Use a type of epoxy designed for metal – J-B Weld is the strongest:

Weld a nut onto the end of the screw

Use a screw extractor

This is bottom of the list because it involves buying a special bit of equipment – a screw extractor set. However, it really belongs at the top because it is the quickest, most reliable solution.  Screw extractors have a left-handed thread, which means that you put your drill into reverse and then start drilling into the broken screw. When the extractor has embedded itself in the screw, the left-hand rotation will neatly unscrew it. If you’re going to the trouble of buying a screw extractor, then you might as well buy a set, because (1) you won’t have to try to guess which size you need and (2) you’ll have the correct tool on hand the next time you encounter a broken screw!

If you have a trick that’s not mentioned here, let me know in the comments and I’ll update this post!

Recently I got a new set of sofas and armchairs to go in my living room. They were perfect apart from one small problem – the legs were too short. By that I mean that the underside of the sofas were too close to the ground to allow my Roomba vacuum cleaner to fit underneath. As you can see from this picture, a Roomba will happily clean underneath furniture, but only if there’s enough room – in the case of my model, about three and a half inches (90mm).

I definitely wanted to make sure that my Roomba could fit underneath the new sofas – I have three dogs and hardwood floors, so hair will inevitably gather if it’s not being picked up. I started looking at chair raisers – there are some very nice hardwood ones available – but quickly realised that there were two problems. Firstly, I would need three sets, which would set me back the best part of $100. Secondly, there’s no way to adjust the height – I wanted to raise my sofas and chairs up by only the minimum amount necessary. So I decided to make my own.

Design

The basic plan is to use a hole saw to cut a bunch of circular wooden disks out of cheap timber planks, and then stack the disks together until they’re the right height. Then, to securely hold the legs of the sofa, you’ll cut a final disk with a cut-out section in the middle where the sofa leg will go. A photo of the rough finished product should make things clearer:

This one was made from 3/4 inch (18mm) planed timber, and I used three layers to give a total height of  2¼ inches (54mm). The top layer was made from the same piece of wood, but doesn’t contribute to the height of the sofa – the sofa leg just sits in the round depression so that it’s held securely. This is the rough version – if you’re going to be able to see the leg raisers, you could sand the outside and stain or paint for a nicer finish.

Construction

The trick to cutting out these perfectly circular disks of wood is to use a hole saw -  a circular blade that fits into a normal drill and cuts round holes.

For this project we need to cut two sizes of hole – a big one for the main layers, and a smaller one for the sofa/chair leg to fit into. Rather than buying two individual saws, it’s cheaper to buy a set that contains a range of sizes. This set will do the job perfectly and contains a range of sizes which will be useful for other projects. You’ll also need an electric drill and some smooth planed timber – try to get a plank that’s 3/4 inches thick and about 5 inches wide.

Now, on to the cutting. Disclaimer: power tools are dangerous – take care!

If you look at your hole saw, you’ll see that the central drill bit protrudes a bit beyond the cutting saw part. The trick to cutting nice neat holes is to drill through your wood until the central bit emerges on the other side, but before the saw part has cut all the way through. Then, turn the wood over and finish off the cut from the other side, using the central hole to make sure that you’re cutting in exactly the same place. If you just cut all the way through from one side, then you’ll get a load of splinters where the saw breaks through the wood. Most hole saws have a small hole in the back that you can use to poke out the circular disk if it is stuck – do this gently, as you don’t want to dent the wood.

While you’re cutting, watch out for any sign of overheating, like smoke. The friction between the saw and the wood can cause it to get very hot. Also, be careful not to touch the blade immediately after you’ve finished a cut as it will probably be hot. A hole saw generates a large amount of sawdust – much more than normal drilling – so make sure you do it somewhere that will be easy to clean up.

The easiest way to figure how how many layers you need is by trial and error. Cut out four disks using the largest hole saw in your set, and put them underneath the four legs of your sofa. If it’s still not high enough, cut another four and repeat. Be careful, because at this stage there is nothing holding the disks together, so they could easily slip.

Once you’ve got enough layers to raise your sofa to the right height, cut one more set of disks for the top layer that will hold the legs. Now comes the clever bit – we will use a hole saw to cut another disk from inside the first one, leaving us with a ring-shaped bit of wood that will hold the leg securely. The trick to this is to cut the inner hole just big enough to hold the existing sofa leg, so measure it and pick the hole saw from your set that is just big enough to fit. If your existing sofa leg is round, then just measure across it; if it is square then measure on the diagonal. If the size is in between two of your hole saws, then pick the smaller one and enlarge the inner hole after glueing. Use the drill bit hole in the centre of your wooden disk to make sure that you drill the inner hole in the exact middle. You’ll probably want to clamp the wooden disk when drilling it, as there might not be much clearance between the edges of the disk and the hole that you’re drilling.

When all the drilling is done, you’ll be left with a stack of wooden disks (3 in my case) and a wooden ring for each leg. Assemble each raiser by glueing the bottom of each disk to the top of the one below it, and glueing the bottom of the ring to the top of the uppermost disk (take a look back at the photo above to see what I mean).  Because you’ve made the disks from planed wood, the tops and bottoms should be perfectly flat and easy to glue. And because you’ve used a hole saw to make the disks they should all be exactly the same diameter, so it should be easy to get them to line up.

Once the glue has dried, it’s time to check that the sofa legs fit into the depressions on the top of each raiser. If you’ve cut the holes slightly too small, then the best way to enlarge them slightly is with a rotary tool like a Dremel with a drum sander.

You could also use a round file or a piece of sandpaper, but it will take quite a lot longer! If necessary, you can tap the bottom of the raisers with a mallet to get them seated securely on the sofa legs – the slight friction between the leg and the wood will help to hold them on securely.

Finally, finish the raisers however you like. I simply sanded the outside to a nice smooth finish, but if the raisers are going to be on display, then you could stain or paint them to match the rest of your furniture.

Time for a bit of non-photography craft now. I spent some time last night drilling a collection of shells and sea glass to make hanging decorations, and I had to search around a fair bit looking for instructions, so I’m going to lay out how I did it to help other people in the same situation.

Before I start let’s just get this out of the way:

Warning! Drilling stuff is dangerous! If you accidentally drill a hole in your hand/get shell in your eye/inhale silica dust/lose your hearing using these instructions, I am not responsible!

Tools

You’ll need some sort of rotary tool. I used a Dremel, but there are many other brands which I’m sure would work just as well. There are about a million different models; this is the one I use. The cordless ones are pretty cool, but not really necessary for this type of thing.

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