wood screws breaking off

[Mike]

I see all the posts recommending a lubricant. In my estimation a complete waste of time and totally unnecessary. Save the wax for 1/2" galvanized lag bolts. It may also foul any future finish and surely won't fix a problem with a improperly sized countersink.

If you are breaking screws, a)the pilot hole is not right and/or b)the torque on the driver is set too high.

First determine where the break is occurring. If you are snapping off the head as commonly happens with a hard wood like oak or maple then you probably have not drilled the pilot hole in the top piece big enough. Most common two step counter sinks sized for the threads do not drill a big enough hole in the top piece. This hole must be big enough to allow the thread to spin and draw the bottom piece up tight. Oversize the countersink a bit or predrill the top piece with a bigger bit. Use the wax on your skiis.

mike

[Charlie Self]

Silvan responds:

Don't know for all of them, but the last 3 I bought (over 3 years, 2 for toilets), were marked as containing beeswax and other waxes. Stuff is so cheap, I can't see them substituting too heavily.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:46:28 -0500, Silvan brought forth from the murky depths:

Yup. The new stuff stays soft where the old wax got a lot harder after the solvent dried. I put a nice, new terlit in this house and the new ring was a synthetic. I've never seen any foamy gooey stuff.

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[Larry Jaques]

On 14 Dec 2003 19:31:46 GMT, [e-mail] (Charlie Self) brought forth from the murky depths:

Have you priced beeswax lately? With the death of so many bees and fewer keepers, things are looking bad for crops which have to be pollenated.

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[Gregg Germain]

Mike wrote: : I'm having trouble with wood screws breaking off under pressure (that : is, when I'm screwing them in). I'm using steel wood screws, : pre-drilling holes, and using white oak. They seem to be breaking off : quite easily.

: Are there better screws to be using? All local hardware stores seem : only to carry steel.

: Ideas?

: Thanks.

I prefer to use boiled linseed oil as a lubricant. The open pores in the pilot hole suck up the oil and it helps to keep the wood fresh. Also, the oil is a fine lubricant and means the difference between a broken screw or a good fastening, when I drive in silicon Bronze screws into white oak.

--- Gregg

My woodworking projects:

Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

FAQ with photos:

"Improvise, adapt, overcome." [e-mail] Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Phone: [phone]

[Grandpa]

$10/lb at Hobby Lobby - I use it for rigging model ships.

[Charlie Self]

Two bucks a pound from my FIL, free from my BIL.

Of course, the stuff still has some bees knees attached, but that's not a deal killer when a pieceof cheesecloth and a double boiler cleans it up so quickly. Mix it with some canning wax and you get a really great medium wax for almost any job.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal." Alexander Hamilton

[Silvan]

Black, foamy, like some kind of partially-cured but still gooey neoprene. That's what Pop's pooper has.

Mine was yellow stuff rather a lot like beeswax.

[Grandpa]

Sounds like the sewer backed up and this stuff 'stuck' to the connection

- nasty!

[Larry Jaques]

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 01:57:33 -0500, Silvan brought forth from the murky depths:

Strange.

Mine was a slightly amber ring with triple-thick vaseline-like goop on it. It smelled of hydrocarbons, which, I suppose, is much better than what it was going to smell like.

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[FOW]

[Silvan]

I thought so too.

Mine smelled a lot like beeswax.

(I think it was beeswax.)