wood screws breaking off FAQ

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

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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On 14 Dec 2003 19:31:46 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnotforme (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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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:

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

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

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.

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

- nasty!

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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I thought so too.

Mine smelled a lot like beeswax.

(I think it was beeswax.)