Extracting broken bolt / screw

[dpb]

[dpb]

In that case, what's the point of the vise grips?

This suggestion needs more explanation to make any sense to me -- if the bolt is so bound as to have caused it to twist off in place, seems unlikely this is going to work -- although I've no such engraving tool, either.

I'm the heat cycle kinda' guy, meself... :)

I do like the idea of the tack-weld a new nut on -- now if I only had a MIG or wire-feed unit instead of (or in addition to) the stick... :)

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[SteveB]

Sometimes a bolt head will shear off because of sideways forces, and not be in the threads hard. Sometimes there is not enough sticking up to get a vise grip on there. I have had several that once you got it turned a couple of turns with an ice pick, you could get it the rest of the way out with your fingers.

They're all different.

Steve

[Nate Nagel]

Yup, I've done that many times, usually using a piece of hardened steel shaft (actually often a broken "knockout pin" from a cold heading machine, because that was the type of machinery I was working on) ground to a fine point on a bench grinder and a 3 lb. hammer. A nail might work in a pinch although you'll undoubtedly ruin it - the modified knockout punch was reusable, so I only had to make one every couple months or so. That only works on bolts that have broken due to fatigue or overtightening though, not ones that snapped when loosening due to threads being seized.

nate

[tnom]

Who's to say the bolt broke because of torque?

[dpb]

Well, where I was confused by the suggestion was if it were available for vice grips, what's the point/need of anything else if it isn't bound? Maybe they were intended to be independent, but wasn't what it seemed to say so I was just trying to figure out what the poster really meant...

If it's simply an alternative for reaching a recessed but freely turning broken bolt, ok...

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[Oren]

I'm amazed when I have a nub to grab with a vise grip, even the needle nose version. (make proper jaw adjustment, then clamp)

Soaked in fluid, with the vise grip I might tighten the nub CW first (slightly) and then loosen. It breaks a freeze/bound thread...sometimes.

Helps me.

Oren

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[SteveB]

Had the same situation recently. Twisted off the rod on a turnbuckle because it was frozen. Soaked it overnight, then put the clamp on there again and wiggled back and forth, and it moved. A little more wiggling, and it threaded right out. I think there'd be a whole lot more EZ Outing if people would just take time, use penetrants, not overtorque and generally pay attention. But that doesn't sound like anyone I know.

Steve

[Oren]

AND a tad more lube when they wiggle :))

Oren

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[DoN. Nichols]

Certainly not for gripping a screw or bolt which has broken off flush. :-)

*But* -- if the bolt has been overtorqued and broken from tension -- or what was bolted down got levered up to overtension the bolt, it would be likely to break off at the first thread outside the threaded hole -- since there would be no support there. Those bolts are more likely to work with the "buzzing out" approach.

Certainly if it has rusted into its hole, and then broken off from torque when someone is trying to *remove* it, then the heat approach is more likely to work.

But I don't have a welder, so it is unlikely to work for *me*. :-)

Whenever I finally get a welder, I'm thinking of the Maxstar

140, which is both stick and Tig. I don't think that I'll need to weld anything larger than that. And the problem simply is finding one which I can afford at the moment. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.