WOODRIVER Screw Extractor 5/16"

One of our lawn sprinkler heads was cracked and spraying on the side of our Tuff-Shed door right onto the hinges. I didn’t notice it - for like a year…..When I finally noticed, the two lower hinges were well on their way to being completely rusted. So I figured I’d remove the hinges, remove the rust and re-install them, easy-peasy, right? Not so much.The shed side of the hinge is held in place by four #2 Robertson square head 2-1/2” long #10 screws, the door side with the same #2 Robertson square head but 1-1/2” long #10 screws. Let’s just say removing them was quite a challenge. No simple electric drill with a #2 bit to remove them. It took a short, hardened, #2 bit with a 3/8” ratchet and a long handle to coax these out.Well, all but three of them. Two of the 1-1/2” and one 2-1/2” screw heads came right off, rusted all the way through. Three little rusty screw stubs poking out at me. Which led me to look for screw extractors and then to this WoodRiver extractor. The Tuff-Shed screws are #10 screws and I had 3/8” wood dowels so I ordered the 3/8” size after duly reading the reviews here.Caveat #1 – when a standard 3/8” drill chuck jaws are opened all the way to 3/8”, the jaws are 3/16” below the surface of the chuck head, by the time you have the extractor securely in the chuck, there’s only about 1” sticking out. WoodRiver does warn not to tighten the chuck too tight. I followed this closely but found that the jaws of the chuck don’t grip well on the extractor’s hardened steel so it has to be somewhat tight or it will just spin. I did tighten it enough to prevent spinning but ended up cracking one end.Caveat #2 – the extractor is for WOOD, not steel or anything else. I didn’t realize it but one of the heads of one of 1-1/2” screws left a ring of metal around the screw, because of the way it rusted through, whcih I obliviously drilled into the wood. That did a good job of removing the remaining teeth on the other end of the extractor. Luckily, that was the last of the three screws and the wood around the screw was removed enough to be able to pull the remaining screw stub our with needle nose pliers.Caveat #3 – If you go slow, don’t tighten the chuck too much, drill only in wood, and have a screw stub that’s no longer that about 1”, you’ll probably be able to use this all day long.It’s a very well designed tool, I wasn’t able to find anything else that would have worked as well, and it allowed me to repair my three broken screws with 3/8” wood dowel inserts and not have to pull the entire door apart. I did replace all of the screws with stainless steel star head screws for about $2.00.If you’re using this for the first time, I do recommend buying two of them. If I hadn’t been able to pull the last stub out with pliers, I would have had to order a 2nd one.

After breaking off a screw in a new cabinet I thought I would have to take out a large section of the frame and replace it since the SS screw was buried deep in the maple. After finding this product I was hopeful I would only have to glue a dowel to refasten the cabinet door. Well, this product was a total failure. It broke after penetrating the wood about 1/8" so now I have an additional problem....a broken screw and the end of a metal tube in the wood. Based on the fracture pattern, and it broke twice....both ends...I can tell the metal used for this product was never hardened. It was so brittle I barely turned on my drill before it broke. See picture. I followed the poorly written instruction sheet, probably written by some Taiwanese person at the factory, to a 'T". Did everything I was supposed to do and it broke. So my troubles have more than doubled.I ended up drilling around the broken screw, inside this marvel (read sarcasm) of a tool, with a 1/16" titanium bit. I was then able to extract all the pieces of this amazing example of foreign ingenuity and use a small, strong screw driver to chisel out enough wood so that the screw came out. I then redrilled the hole with a 1/4" bit, cleaned it out, fit a wooden dowel to the hole size, glued it in and finished the repair. What was supposed to take me 15 minutes to complete took almost 2 hours as I didn't want to damage the cabinet face.A word of WARNING.....this will more than likely happen to anyone using this product when extracting a screw from any wood harder than pine or plywood. My recommendation.....save your $20, use a small drill bit like I did, and save yourself a lot of time and aggravation.

If you use brass screws when woodworking you have almost certainly experienced a screw head twisting off because the friction on the threads on one end versus the torque on the other end overcame the strength of the brass. With small brass screws, there simply isn't enough metal left to use a reverse screw extractor. These come to your rescue.They don't come with much instructions, but the important steps are there. Here is what I know:1. Select the correct size. Compare an unused model of the same screw with the extractor. The screw should easily fit inside the extractor.2. Make a guide block. I used a ⅜ inch by ¾ inch strip and drilled three holes, one for each extractor size. The strip is long enough to be clamped in position (or held.) The extractor should fit the hole snugly. Wax the holes (bee's wax or carnauba works.)3. Center the appropriate hole in the guide block over the broken screw and clamp it in place.4. Chuck the screw extractor in a variable-speed drill. Use caution. The saw points on the extractor are very sharp. If you aren't careful you will be removing blood stains from your project.5. Make certain that you do not apply any sideways pressure (at all) on the extractor. It is very brittle (a requirement for it to work with such thin walls) and it will easily fracture. This is the primary reason the guide is needed, it help keep the extractor going into the work squarely. It also positions the extractor as it starts its cut.6. Pay attention to the direction of cut.7. When the extractor is at the depth of the screw, stop the drill and pull straight up on the chuck, not on the drill handle. lifting on the handle will break the extractor.8. Remove the guide and snap the remaining wood plug with broken screw out using a small screwdriver or chisel.9. Glue a small piece of dowel into the hole.When you have the technique down, this is such a great fix (especially behind hinges) that you will no longer fear screws breaking. However, it took me a while to learn there are no good shortcuts to these instructions. The extractors break with ease if you mistreat them. Any sideways (bending) pressure on the extractor will break it. Good habits are necessary to prevent breakage. And breakage can cause significant damage to your project.I love these extractors, but I have learned to have great respect for them!