Ask the Builder
Screw Extractors
By Tim Carter
©1993-2008 Tim Carter
Summary: Screw extractors allow you to back out screws whose heads are stripped. These simple and effective devices can be found at large national retail stores that have a hardware department. The extractors have special hardened steel heads with reverse cutting bits. Once inserted into a regular drill they cut into and grab the head of the screw as you rotate the drill in reverse.
DEAR TIM: Please advise on how to get the stripped screws out of my plywood shutters. Wilma, the hurricane, has been gone a couple of weeks and I still have boards on my windows! I have an electric drill and most of the screws came out or had enough of the metal head showing to use gripper/vise pliers. The rest of the screws are keeping the boards on the windows and I'm getting stir crazy....Woman with drill and no knowledge, Sheila M...thank you for your help!
DEAR SHEILA: All you need is a screw extractor. These little bits fit into a standard drill. The bit has a hardened steel head and the cutting edges actually bite into the head of the screw as it spins counterclockwise. Once it grabs, the screw starts to magically rotate out of the wood.
The screw extractors must be used with a power drill that can go in reverse or spin counter-clockwise. The cutting surfaces of the extractor are made to bite into the head of the screw when they rotate in this direction.
The extractors come as a set and can be found at large retail stores that sell clothes, appliances and have a hardware and paint department. Can you think which store that is? It begins and ends with an "S".
