Desperate measures for desperate Techs:
Take one slightly undersized or worn hex key.
Place tightly in vise grips, business end pointed up.
Apply oxy-map gas or acetylene flame to tip until cherry red. Tap firmly but no too hard on tip with flat end of small hammer to spread it. Immediately quench in mineral oil to temper.
Grind or hand stone to fit.
This is time consuming, but sometimes the knob or gear or what have you, you can then save may be irreplaceable, fabricated with unobtanium.
Hints:
#1: Do not reuse the old set screw!
#2: If not inappropriate, replace old set screw with a longer one which provides greater internal surface area for the wrench to work with.
#3: If not inappropriate, drill out the screw hole and tap for a larger screw.
#4: Incantations in the dialect of choice during removal attempt(s) may assist in the process. A higher power may be invoked, but beware of possible response!
Thomas Garson
Aural Technology, Ashland, OR
By my calculation, the dynamic range of the universe is roughly 679dB,
which is approximately 225 bits, collected at a rate 1.714287514x10^23 sps.
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On 3/7/21 8:04 AM, Daniel Koller via groups.io wrote:
I'll resurrect my own boring response!?? ??Wera Hex Plus!
It's not the size that matters, but the shape and material.?? In this case, the drivers are hardened steel.
I have direct experience with these tools.?? As an on going work project, I test the breaking torque of 0-80 stainless steel and black-oxide coated steel screws.?? ??For the stainless steel screws, the hex in the head rounds off before they reach their breaking torque.?? For the black oxide screws, the tool typically rounds off.?? The only tool capable of gripping the hex 100% of the time is the Wera.???
?? If you can't get it out with a Wera, you are going to have to drill the set screw out.?? I note also that the Wera tools have a taper to them near the top of the ground steel tip -?? a "shoulder" between the tip and the rounded shaft of the tool. So, if you grind the tool from the bottom to the right point, you can get the slightly wider shoulder to engage the screw, and so effectively "widen" the tool a bit as necessary for that one set screw that has been rounded out.?? ??I have not had to do this yet, but I have in the past ground down standard hex keys to get a more square profile in the bottom of the socket, and that has helped.
Dan
On Sunday, March 7, 2021, 10:39:24 AM EST, snapdiode via groups.io <snapdiode@...> wrote:
I resurrect my own boring thread.
Since I got both 1.27mm and 1.30mm keys to help remove those devil-spawned set screws, I wondered if 1.28 and 1.29mm sizes would help removing the tough ones.
So I asked the eBay seller if he could get his supplier to make these sizes.
What think ye?
