Hi All,
Getting rusted in machine screws out of a plane that I am working on has been a problem.
However, I finally have had success with some badly rusted in/frozen in machine screws in the last couple of weeks.
The final effort had been to find close fitting screw drivers, putting my weight on the screw head by holding the screw driver against my shoulder, putting my weight on it, and twisting the handle as strongly as I could. I buggered up one screw head a little bit, but the machine screws would not budge. I had fiddled with those screws on and off for a while prior to this, trying other lesser approaches that normally worked and was getting frustrated prior to this.
Time to try a different plan. I then sprayed the screw heads with a lot of AeroKroil, "the oil that creeps." I set the planes in an big old cooking pot, one long past the condition that you would cook with it, and orientated the planes so that the Kroil could be pooled around the screw heads and the pools could be allowed to soak in for several days.
In the meantime, I was telling a close friend at work about the problem, and he mentioned that he had used his drill/impact driver to remove a bolt from his truck engine that he could on budge with a wrench, and suggested that I try that approach, mentioning that I could bring it over and try his drive. Well, I have an impact driver also, one that takes 1/4" hex head bits.
Well, after soaking the first plane two or three days I gave it a go with the impact driver, and the machine screw came out! This one was not as bad as the screws in the 2nd plane.
The second plane was much worse, and the machine screw heads were fairly badly corroded, and some of the plane itself was more rusted than I would like. I should never have bought it. In fact the parts of the plane were so bad that I had bead blasted the lever cap, and you could see that the parts of the lever cap were badly pitted after the corrosion was bead blasted away. (I almost never bead blast smooth parts of planes because it gives them a frosted appearance, so prefer to use fine sandpaper, Scotch Brite pads, and metal polish, but this lever cap was beyond that approach, so nothing was to be lost by bead blasting. I have only used bead blasting on smooth parts of this one plane at this point, but will have to use such on a second pitted plane in the near future.
Thus, I really slathered the Kroil spray and let it set for 9 days. The two screws through the frog into the bed, holding the frog in place, and the one in the back of the frog were the 3 I could not budge. Since the two going into the bed were the bigger problem, I set the plane flat, and soaked the inside of the frog where the screws go into the bed with Kroil, however, I only sprayed the back screw strongly and let is set. Finally we had a relatively warm day, so I put the plane in the sun inside a fairly heavy duty clear plastic bag and waited for it to warm up.
After a couple of hours in the sun, I gave it a go with the impact driver. The machine screws resisted a little at first and then came right out. Same with the one in the back of the frog. YES YES YES!
I was to the point that I would have intentionally broken off the screws had they not come loose, because I had a spare body that I could use, but of course did not want to break the screws off in the body if it could be avoided. The spare body is in much better shape than the original. Now I will be looking for cheap parts for the original body as I have time.
In all cases the upper half of the screw threads were rusty, but the bottom half of the screws was clean. In the case of the second plane, the upper threads on the screws were half filled with rust.
The simple solution is never buy a plane in the corroded state, but once the second plane was mine I was determined to re-hab it.
At any rate, I am now a believer in the soak the screws in Kroil and then use the impact driver.
Stew
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