Replies

1. 
   Timothy_Morrow | Oct 04, 1999 10:17pm | #1

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   Try cutting a new slot with a hack saw or my favorite tool, a cut off.You may have to heat the screw as some times they are installed with Loctite

2. 
   Guest_ | Oct 05, 1999 04:48am | #2

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   I'm pretty sure there is actually a device designed to remove these screws. They don't exactly advertise them, but I recall coming across a mfr of bathroom partitions etc. that had one. Hacksaw works too, or a metal cutter in a drill or Dremel tool.

   I just tried a cursory Altavista search and got, believe it or not:

   The Tamperproof Screw Co., Inc.

1. 
   Guest_ | Oct 05, 1999 12:36pm | #3

   *Tamper-proof is like rust proof; all steel rusts and any thing can be tampered (yes, tampered is not a word). Nothing tampers and solves fastner problems like a corded Dremel with an abrasive cut-off wheel. Cut a padlock shackle, a slot in a stripped screwhead, cut off a frozen nut, etc.Joe

1. 
   Guest_ | Oct 05, 1999 01:38pm | #4

   *Andrew,I checked out the site. Informative. In the description of "One-Way Slotted" screws, they state "sex-bolts" are also available. Any I dea what those could be?Steve

1. 
   Guest_ | Oct 05, 1999 02:50pm | #5

   *SteveSex bolts are used in many hardware applications. The nut is elongated from 3/4 to 3" or so long. It has a cap on one end that looks like a screw head. They are used with door closers so that uou can have a finnished end on both sides. I believe the device to remove the screws is a yankee screwdrever, but I could be wrong.Rick Tuk

3. 
   jim_hunt | Oct 05, 1999 11:21pm | #6

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   Steve

   Try drilling a small hole in the head of the screw( about an 1/8 th to a depth of 1/4) and removing it using a stud extractor, this does not damage whatever the screw is holding.

   jimi........

1. 
   Steve_Ernst | Oct 06, 1999 06:42pm | #7

   *McMaster-Carr (404-346-7000)lists a one-way screw removal tool. in my catalogue # 96 this is a 7392a[52,53,54]for #6-8,10-12,14 screws. 18-20$'sSteve

4. 
   Guest_ | Oct 09, 1999 10:54pm | #8

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   steve,

   I use vice-grips.

   Ed. Williams

1. 
   Guest_ | Oct 10, 1999 07:12am | #9

   *No offense, Ed, but you're like the eighth person to call them vice-grips and I haven't said a word:The revered tool is called a VISE-GRIP (vise + grips)I have some ideas what kinky purposes one might put vice-grips to ... no, don't share yours, I don't really want to know either.

1. 
   Guest_ | Oct 10, 1999 09:19pm | #10

   *anD,Thanks.Sounds painful..........but.........Ed. Williams

1. 
   Guest_ | Oct 11, 1999 11:37pm | #11

   *Indeed - the tool is "VISE-GRIP"(it's the lawyers that are the "vice-grips"...) For those of you so inclined, you can have your own silver plated Vise-Grips for only $79.95 or gold plated ones for $99.95 at a tool store near you. My question is whether I would get an extra $20 of wear out of the gold plated ones...(In honor of Vise-Grips 75th, complete with wooden box and a real certificate of whatever.)BTW - Andrew, Sandra Day Oconner was out here a few weeks ago saying at the Univ of Oregon that all lawyers are scum... (Actually, she may have said something more along the lines of "the bad reputation of lawyers may not be entirely undeserved".)[The elipses (...) here, or course, representing the pregnant pause of speech, awaiting spontaneous laughter... - my idiosyncracy being to use them rather than little smiley faces...]

1. 
   Guest_ | Oct 12, 1999 12:53am | #12

   *Well, she was a Republican nominee -- she ought to know. :) Besides, the Supremes already think they're better than all the lawyers.Maybe a pair of gold-plated Vise-grips would look nice in my office (if I ever have one). All the lawyers would ask, duh, what's that? If someone p*sses me off I can twist their nose off or attach it to an earlobe -- they'd never figure out how to get it off. I had some background in mechanics and when I worked at a hospital left an old spark plug on my desk -- no one knew what it was.It's funny, a few years ago I recall someone in the office at the court I worked in asking around how to spell "Sawzall" -- turns out a prisoner had, uh, borrowed one from the prison shop. No one had ever heard of the tool; now it's so familiar to me, heck, I even own one.

5. 
   steve_kessler | Oct 12, 1999 12:59am | #13

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   Does anyone know of a method to remove tamper-proof screws? These are screws with the slot in the head modified so that they can only be screwed in but the blade of the screwdriver has nothing to bear on when trying to turn out the screw.