Today's little workplace challenge was a broken stainless M3 screw in a high tensile aluminium slip ring housing.
The mangled stub of the broken screw was maybe 2 mm proud of the alloy housing. When running a tap through the three other M3 holes in this assembly, I noticed that those must have been Loctited. This being an aluminium electrical slip ring, costing $$$$$$$ required a careful approach. Drilling out a 3 mm (1/8" ish) stainless screw in a super expensive aluminium part was not something I wanted to try..
So, I used a 75 watt soldering gun, to hopefully heat up the screw enough to burn off the Loctite. After thorough heating, and letting everything cool off, I managed to get a grip on the stub and unscrew it. The brand new "Knipex" channellocks I used were also part of the reason I pulled this off. Anyway, the soldering iron trick was something I learned on this forum. Thanks all!
The mangled stub of the broken screw was maybe 2 mm proud of the alloy housing. When running a tap through the three other M3 holes in this assembly, I noticed that those must have been Loctited. This being an aluminium electrical slip ring, costing $$$$$$$ required a careful approach. Drilling out a 3 mm (1/8" ish) stainless screw in a super expensive aluminium part was not something I wanted to try..
So, I used a 75 watt soldering gun, to hopefully heat up the screw enough to burn off the Loctite. After thorough heating, and letting everything cool off, I managed to get a grip on the stub and unscrew it. The brand new "Knipex" channellocks I used were also part of the reason I pulled this off. Anyway, the soldering iron trick was something I learned on this forum. Thanks all!