Kitchen faucets are a blessing. They come up with modern technology to provide you with a constant flow of water for your household works and tasks. You can do a lot of things with a kitchen faucet. To survive, you must need water and when water is required, a faucet is required as well.
Allen screws are common in a faucet. They keep your faucet parts in place and arranged. Besides, they hold the parts of your faucet neatly. Allen screws become a headache when they are stripped or stuck and you can’t use a regular screwdriver to pull them out.
So, the question is, how to remove a stripped Allen screw from your faucet?
Well, there are a couple of ways that you can try at your home. There are commercial screwdrivers made for stripped Allen screws as well. You can try those too! In this article, we’ll try to cover how you can remove a stripped Allen screw from your faucet.
Let’s start!
Required tools
For this job, you’ll need a few tools. These tools are not expensive and if you’re a man of DIY projects, chances are, you have them in your toolbox. Gather those tools to get started quickly and soon.
- Hammer
- Screw extractors
- Adjustable wrench or locking pliers
- Metal drill bit
- Power drill machine
These tools are required for Allen screw removal operation. All of them serve different purposes. When you’re willing to remove an Allen screw, make sure you have all these gathered.
Steps of removing stripped Allen screw from your faucet
Find the suitable screw extractor you need
The screw extractor package contains a lot of different-sized screws. From the screw package, you have to select which one is suitable for the screw you want to remove. The matching is pretty important. If your screw extractor doesn’t match your Allen screw,
you won’t be able to remove the stripped screw comfortably. It’ll slip easily.
Choose the perfect metal drill bit size and grab a drill machine
The next step is drilling for your Allen screw. For this job, you’ll need a metal drill bit that fits perfectly on the center of the screw. This process should be done after you find out the exact extractor for your Allen screw.
After that, you need a power drill. This drill will help you to dig. There are a lot of comfortable power drills available on the market, find out which one is suitable for you. When you have the drill machine in hand, hold tightly the metal drill bit on the head of the Allen screw. When you’re holding it and ready to go you have to make sure that the drill bit is at the center perfectly.
Drill a pit
When everything is set and you’re ready to go, turn the drill machine on and drill a pit. You have to be careful about the hole measurement. It should be 6.5 mm or lower. When the hole is perfectly made, safely remove the drill bit by reversing.
Many of the consumers find this step hard to deal with as you have to be careful about the size measurement. Besides, the hole must fit the screw extractor as well. If they don’t match, you won’t be able to remove the Allen screw.
Set up the screw extractor inside the hole
When the drilling is perfectly done, you need to set the screw extractor inside the hole. Make sure you’re setting it deep inside and it’s sitting there pretty hard. While doing this, you can get help from a hammer. Hammer a little so it goes deeper. If the hole is a bit smaller for the screw extractor, then pull it out and dig a little more.
The screw extractor should tightly fix in the hole that you just made. When you’re making the hole you have to ensure that at the same time.
The last finishing up by removing the Allen screw
For this step, you have to grab the adjustable wrench or locking pliers. When the screw extractor is set up properly and it’s fixed right there, you need to attach an adjustable wrench to it. Now you need to move the wrench counterclockwise to loosen the Allen screw.
Before you start moving the screw extractor, make sure that you have tightened the wrench and it’s hard. When you start turning the screw extractor counterclockwise you’ll eventually notice that the screw is coming out gradually.
How to Remove a Rusted Screw with No Head?
When it’s a matter of rusted screw, you need to use heat to loosen a rusted screw. You can use different types of penetrating oil as well. The oil will loosen the rusted screw over time. If a penetrating oil doesn’t work well, you need to heat.
You can use a hairdryer for this case. Hit the screws until they start to smoke. When it’s making smoke, immediately soak the area. You can use cold water for this purpose.
Go through this process a couple of times to make sure the screw is loose enough to remove by hand or with your screw extractor.
Conclusion
So, this is how you can remove a stripped Allen screw from the faucet. If you’re dealing with this issue, you need to take the necessary steps as soon as possible. A stripped screw is pretty harmful and it can cause bigger problems. Go through the steps as they are pretty easy. When you apply all the methods correctly, your stripped screw will be removed.
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