Paint stripper

If the banister is away from the wall you could use a plumbers heat resistant mat

Banisters on the wall side of stairs are often easy to remove if fixed with brackets.

Can you not protect the wall section you are working on by sliding something behind it which can take the accidental heat? Brian

Was it ever painted with lead paint ?. If so, using a heat gun may not be the best solution.

Yeah had sort of come to the conclusion that that was the way forward. Cue lots of questions on removing(and replacing) screws that have been in place 50~60 years.

Hope not, don't think so .

If slotted overpainted screws use a (maybe sacrificial) screwdriver. Heat the and end of the screwdriver hot enough to cut/melt through the paint to get firmly into the slot. If slotted consider replacing with new cross head.

If Victorian it could well be. But, the lead salts in paint are not volatile, just be slightly careful with the dust.

Good luck getting an overpainted cross head out...

I've always cut the paint out with a Stanley knife on slots. Wouldn't want to have to do it to a crosshead.

Andy

The heated (with blowtorch) screwdriver works with cross head as well.

One other trick that can work if the screw is tight is to put the screwdriver on the screw head and then give the other end of the screw driver a whack with a hammer. Often then it starts to undo.

Old fashioned manual impact screwdriver. I still have mine, it's over 50 years old.

I've never found that works for me with seized screws, though I've often tried it on the grounds that this time might be the exception! The usual problem is not with screws that are painted over, but ones which have seized into swollen wood or where the head is so rusted that it disintegrates and becomes a round hole (if it was previously cross-head) when you apply enough force on the screwdriver (by hand or by electric motor).

I had to remove some hinges from a gatepost, and one screw out of the four on one hinge would not budge: no matter what force I put on the screwdriver to push it into the screw while trying to turn it, the screwdriver just climbed out of the screw head. Drilling out the screw head was a dead loss: in the case the screw was so hard that a metal-rated drill just got very hot but made no impression. I ended up having to hacksaw through the hinge to cut the moveable blade off the part that was firmly and immovably attached to the post, and then use a burr tool to smooth off the sharp edge on the cut end. Leaving the remains of the hinge, as long as it was not dangerously sharp, was not a problem in this particular case.

I purchased one around 45 years ago when the only car that I could afford was a 10 year old rust heap that required a door to be replaced and the only way to get it off was a impact screwdriver.

These days for domestic DIY I find a cordless Makita impact driver does a good job.

Two methods I've used with broken screws (snapped heads) in wood.

If there is enough shank exposed and you can grip it with mole grips then you can get a lot of leverage to turn it. If you can only grip it at the very end use a screwdriver in the mole grip handle as the lever.

Get a very small drill and run it down the side of the screw in perhaps

Mine's younger by about 10 years and has been used many times. The most recent use was getting screws out of Crittall windows with 80 years of paint over them - nothing else would do. Zapping the paint with a gas torch and a bit of scraping revealed the outline of the slots; a couple of taps on the impact driver and out came the screws. I tried using a modern ID but the bit just came out of the slot.

Recently, when I couldn't find my old impact driver, I was surprised to find out that SWMBO had a slightly newer one. Women today, thinking they can use tools designed for men! Tch! ;-)

On 22/01/2021 22:46, alan_m wrote: ... snipped

That works OK but the grain in the dowels runs in the wrong direction so may not retain screws very well. If screw retention or appearance are important (hinge screws, for example) I make plugs using a plug cutter and then the grain can be in the appropriate direction.

According to the government leaflet I've linked below, lead paint was used up to the 1960s. My house was built in the 1930s and has plenty of lead paint so I use a heat gun set to 400-450C and wear a mask. When machine sanding I wear a mask and use a vacuum on the sander.

The dowel I have seem very fine grain and harder than the pine that I've inserted them into.

I sorted a stuck screw in an old wooden bed frame[1], by using a gas blow torch to heat the screw. Had to do a load of protection to stop wood damage. Let it cool and it came out quite easy. I assume the screw expanded, then contracted slightly on cooling, just enough so the wood was less tight. Luckily I only had to do it on one screw out of the