How to remove set screw without damaging threads?
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Tagged: Remove screw no damage
- This topic has 7 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 2 months ago by GfB.
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Double nut
Screw two nuts on the shaft doesn’t have to go on to far. Then jam the nuts together with two wrenches.
To remove turn only the lower but to back the rod out.
To reinstall use only the top nut to tighten the rod then use two wrenches to break them free again.Why remove the perfectly-clean portion from the housing at all?
It hasn’t seen daylight in seventy years. It’s unlikely to be dirty.
If you introduce ‘play’ into the threaded-rod/housing, you’ll have wobble in your precision shoulder plane.
Araldite might stick it back as it was, but it could become misaligned. Plane ruined. I’d leave it in-place. Just a brass wire-brush (softer than steel) to clean the thread.- This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Alan.
[quote quote=479377]Double nut
Screw two nuts on the shaft doesn’t have to go on to far. Then jam the nuts together with two wrenches.
To remove turn only the lower but to back the rod out.
To reinstall use only the top nut to tighten the rod then use two wrenches to break them free again.[/quote]
Cool trick! Definitely one to remember.[quote quote=479390]Why remove the perfectly-clean portion from the housing at all?
It hasn’t seen daylight in seventy years. It’s unlikely to be dirty.
If you introduce ‘play’ into the threaded-rod/housing, you’ll have wobble in your precision shoulder plane.
Araldite might stick it back as it was, but it could become misaligned. Plane ruined. I’d leave it in-place. Just a brass wire-brush (softer than steel) to clean the thread.[/quote]
You make a good point. There is rust in the other end of the tap, so I was trying to figure a good way to get rid of it. Maybe it isn’t worth the effort/risk.The technique @mma02720 describes for gripping threaded rods using two nuts is more difficult in this situation. You’re dealing with vintage Record/Stanley threads – known to be the most obscure, unconventional threads ever used. You could try TWO Record Adjuster-Nuts, lock them, wrap with leather to protect the knurling, then grip like crazy to unscrew.
ASSUMING it unscrews anyway! It may not unscrew at all. You could wreck it.
You’re thinking of, and applying, today’s manufacturing methods, to determine how this may have been made back in 1945. They cared in those days. Reputation and Branding were everything. Labour was cheap.
Don’t assume because it’d be an easy parallel threaded hole today, that it was back then.
Today, you’d unscrew the Adjuster and the rod would disengage from the body at the same time. This hasn’t budged in more than seventy years.What if it has a square-section at the concealed end?
What if its otherwise secured within the plane body, to prevent rotation & slop?
The rod could be larger at the far end, tapered, pushed through from the inside before tapping?
Fixed between the two cast halves during manufacture?Assuming you managed to source two obscure nuts or Adjusters; you hold the body in a vice/clamp, grip the nut with your spanner, then you feel it ‘give’ and start to undo under the torque you’re applying.
Great, you’ll get to clean it up like new on the inside. Then you realise, it wasn’t undoing, it was twisting and stretching the threaded rod like soft toffee, or stripping the threads altogether.
Perhaps the inside is seized solid, and the steel is softer than it first appears?If you clean/polish everything you can see and reach now Geoff, I’m sure you’ll agree you’ve already dismantled it enough.
I’d have to agree with the others – think twice before trying to move that threaded rod. It will have been machined in (ie drilled, tapped and the rod threaded into place) – not incorporated into the cast as someone has suggested – that would have been too difficult for a foundry. The thread looks good – almost pristine, to use one of Paul’s favorite terms! Maybe put some penetrant oil down the thread into the housing to soften up any corrosion that might lurk – but don’t remove it.
I’d also like to try to dispel that myth about plane components having strange and unusual threads – manufacturers like Record would have used whatever was commonly available for machine threads. There is a website which has a list of the common threads on ordinary bench plane components in a table about half way down the page – I have inserted the url.
http://www.recordhandplanes.com/parts-and-sizes.html
It does not have any of the threads on special purpose planes like the ploughs combination and shoulder planes, but I suspect that they were not unusual at all. I will contact the guys in the traditional tools group listed at the bottom of the website page and they may have more information nowadays.
Cheers
Mark HWhy on earth would you want to remove it anyway? The only valid reason I can think of would be so you could have the plane replated (IMHO not a good idea). Otherwise you risk breaking the threaded rod for no discernable benefit.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Dave
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