Thanks for that. Very interesting. Tranny fluid is pretty corrosive from memory, so I wonder if they also tested how much of the bolt was left intact. ha ha.

If anyone else has any good ideas for hard to remove screws, i'd love to hear them. I use WD-40 and most times it works a treat but every now and then you get a real stubborn screw and it'd be nice to have something a little more powerful.

 

Thanks for that. Very interesting. Tranny fluid is pretty corrosive from memory, so I wonder if they also tested how much of the bolt was left intact. ha ha.

If anyone else has any good ideas for hard to remove screws, i'd love to hear them. I use WD-40 and most times it works a treat but every now and then you get a real stubborn screw and it'd be nice to have something a little more powerful.

I have found that pretty much every screw can be removed with lots of pressure and good fitting screw drivers, some hinge rods do need the assistance with plain key oil and external heat applied to the tube, either a direct flame or an applied current through the item usually does the trick, then simply tighten loosen tighten loosen until the bond is broken.

If you want to find things that are truly stuck then start doing trumpet and brass repairs, man some days I wonder how the hell did this slide get this stuck

 

How on earth did they find 6 bolts guaranteed to be equally frozen???

 

Ask Saxgourmet. They cryo those things.

Here it's household MoS2. And patience.

I found out that it's - while technically unexplainable - easier to keep the wrench/screwdriver steady and turn the object round rather than the other way. I agree this works better with saxophones and clarinets than it works with cars or Sherman tanks.

 

LOL! When I read this post, I thought to myself "How did they get 6 bolts to be equally frozen?? How would you even know? This experiment is totally flawed. I bet Gordon will have something to say about this..."

Sure enough! :mrgreen:

 

having recently had to remove a tire from my car I can say all 5 lug nuts were equally frozen. I had to jump on the wrench an equal number of times to loosen each one.

 

You're right there. A good screwdriver is worth its weight in gold. BTW, I had an alto repair not long ago...total mess. What happened? The Labrador sat on the horn. Some days you just wonder.

 

None of the six bolts were "frozen". They all were tightened to 516 pounds and then the oils were applied and resulting resistances measured. A very controlled test in my useless opinion.

 

Bit of googling, and I have come across a forum where the author has apparently commented.

He says the bolts were "scientifically rusted" - perhaps the method is in the paper. He also says

"Allow me to appologize one more time. The test material was intended to be automatic transmission fluid. In the auto parts department, I grabbed a bottle of power steering fluid by mistake. If you read the article, the power steering fluid shown was used. The table you quoted has not been corrected.

One salient point not covered in your question -- these are loads required to free the test piece after 8 hours of immersion in penetrating oil. This is probably not representative of a quick squirt just before a wrench is applied."

Ref: http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/showthread.php?t=27429&page=2&highlight=penetrating+fluid+test
post #18

 

Quite some time ago I had the good fortune to purchase what little was left of an older gentlemans repair shop. At that time I acquired 2 large bottles of Erick Brand RS213 penetrating oil. I don't know what's in it. It was sold in the days before lableing laws and MDS sheets were mandatory. It's an ugly brown color with a terrible smell, but it has loosened almost every stuck screw, rod, and slide I've had to deal with for about 20 years now. I will be very sad when I finally use the last few drops, but that time is coming soon.

 

...I acquired 2 large bottles of Erick Brand RS213 penetrating oil. I don't know what's in it. It was sold in the days before lableing laws and MDS sheets were mandatory. It's an ugly brown color with a terrible smell, but it has loosened almost every stuck screw, rod, and slide I've had to deal with for about 20 years now. I will be very sad when I finally use the last few drops, but that time is coming soon.

Well another quick google, and what do you know?....

"In 1992, Ferree's acquired the Erick Brand Corporation, which had been in the band instrument tool manufacturing business since 1935"

Did Ferree's get the recipe, i wonder?

 

Wouldn't you know it!!! As soon as you start talking about stuck srews and rods....you get a stuck screw or rod.

Register key on a Yamaha student clarinet. Looks like someone has tightened this rod to the Nth degree instead of swedging the tube to reduce key play.

Stuck rod...screwdriver slot is already looking risky.

Apply WD 40 and leave overnight.

Tried to loosen it this morning. No luck.

Applied heat. No luck.

Decided that as this is a school maintenance job and I'm already getting paid to little....I'll leave it rather than risk stripping out the head of the rod.

If anyone has a better idea...I'm open to it.

 

Decided that as this is a school maintenance job and I'm already getting paid to little....I'll leave it rather than risk stripping out the head of the rod.

If anyone has a better idea...I'm open to it.

When you operate the register key, does the rod turn as well, if yes then the rod is bound in the hinge tube if no then the rod is bound in the threaded section of post. Did you heat the post or the tube, alternatively if it is bound in the post you can simply drill it out from behind, it will wind itself out majority of the time when you do this, if it is bound in the tube then use this to your advantage, operate the key fit the screwdriver and forceably close the key and leave the screwdriver steady, this works fairly well in breaking a bound hinge rod

 

Hi Simso,

The rod is bound in the threaded section. I heated the post. Fortunately the register key has a cork pad fitted and from test playing prior to stripping the clarinet down, it ain't leaking. I think that rather than going to the time effort of drilling it out (which I wouldn't be paid for), I'll just get on with everything else and notify them of the problem. If they want to pay me to correct it, well and good. If not, no harm has been done and the instrument is, in all other respects, totally overhauled.
Even so, it galls me to have to leave it this way, but what are you gonna do when the school's maintenence budget means you're already doing far more than you should for the $$$.

 

PB Blaster seems to be the most popular penetrating fluid among technicians. I'll try it when I have used up my 2 containers of Ferrees stuff.

 

When I first arrived here & searched the subject many a time... Blaster had been lauded by many as THE go-to stuff. One and one half years later, having tried it on almost every stuck/rusted rod and screw I ever encountered...repeated applications, baths, dunking, overnight, 3 days even...with heat, to boot....I am hard pressed to remember when it was ever particularly successful.....

 

I bought a couple of cans of Kroil (a lifetime supply) years ago after a nautical instrument repairman told me the old horror stories about WD-40. Kroil works fine, but if I remember right one of it's supposed benefits is that it dissolves rust in order to allow the oil to penetrate and free up the threads. By "rust" they probably mean iron oxide, but that's not always the problem. What works best on a (rusted steel) lug nut might not be the best on a (corroded brass) horn. Since it's the best I've got on my bench, it's still the go to oil.

Mark

 

Nitai,

You're right, most times I do all or some of the things you listed and get the result I'm after. In this case, no luck. The reason I think that someone has tried to overtighten the rod in an effort to reduce play in the key, is that the whole instrument displays really shoddy repairing by someone. I've never seen so much loc-tite used on on clarinet before. It leads me to believe that whomever "repaired" the clarinet last has used a tone of loc-tite, screwed the rod as tight as possible and then some, in a futile effort to keep the key play to a minimum. I think the thread has been munched up in so doing and that the only way I'm gonna get this sucker out is to drill it out.

 

You're right, most times I do all or some of the things you listed and get the result I'm after. In this case, no luck.

Did you try or do you have the ability to improve/correct the slot so you can use an excellent screwdriver, with good shape and sharp tip (maybe modify to improve) and big handle for torque, that would touch the bottom of the slot to create friction? This is where I'd start.

The reason I think that someone has tried to overtighten the rod in an effort to reduce play in the key, is that the whole instrument displays really shoddy repairing by someone...

I guess that's possible except tightening the rod screw won't help against free play of the hinge, only any free play of the rod screw in the posts, but of course the screw should be tightened completely against that anyway. Maybe it's one of the cases where for one of the many possible reasons the rod screw binds the key if tightened all the way which can make it difficult to unscrew but not like it's stuck.

 

Impact screwdrivers are not to bad of an idea they may be worth a shot if it truly is stuck, have not tried them out as to date everything else has worked, but this has also involved desoldering posts etc to free up really bad ones for flutes and saxes, however for piano repairs I have an impact hammer which ever so slightly turns the adjustment pin, so this theory could be used for really tight screws, it uses an incredibly large amount of torque for a miniscule movement, J L smith sell a small impact hammer which has adjustable tension for controlled hits on flute keys for bending, maybe something like this could be adapted for screw heads, certainly worth a try,

 

Kroil is good, but they didn't test the best Kano Labs penetrant 'Sili-Kroil'. Really works on stuck screws, but with any penetrant time and patience are your friends. I think most shop men can take five minutes to apply the penetrant, then come back the next day and finish the job. Apply it with a wood toothpick to the needle spring/post interface. This is a preventive which allows some lucky tech down the road to remove that spring stub when the spring breaks. I do this on my own horns yearly. How many sax owners actually take a slightly oiled Q-Tip and clean their springs with it every month? If they did, they would most likely never have a spring corrode and break.