How to remove a sheared bolt.

I am going to add a series of 'how too' posts to my main website as well as this blog. These are aimed at the absolute beginner or novice and are at the basic level. If you have any 'requests' for a topic then either email me or leave a comment on this blog.

The first in this series is how to remove a broken stud or thread. The example used is a handle that snapped off on my lathe. The part is a closed nut and handle that is used to tighten down on the toolpost. The first task is to carefully drill a pilot hole into the broken part. I aways use a cutting oil to make sure the drill keeps cool and use a good sharp drill.

I used a centre drill followed by two drills, increasing the size of each. Once the hole has been drilled the correct size stud extractor was inserted into the drilled hole and steady pressure applied in the anticlockwise direction. The stud extractor works by tightening itself as you screw it in, and then the force applied goes into moving the remaining thread.

If your careful and make sure your pilot hole and then further drilling is central, then it is very rare that this method fails. It never has for me ............................Below is a set of stud extractors and they can be found relatively cheaply on eBay.

About Mike Freeman

Hello, my name is Mike Freeman and I am a retired Chief Fire Officer from the United Kingdom with a keen interest in model engineering, silver caddy spoons and sea fishing. I live in the pretty fishing port of Brixham, South Devon, in the United Kingdom. I am a sufferer of degenerative osteoarthritis, which impacts on the amount of time I can spend in the workshop, and is the reason why you will see seats and a stool in some of the photo's. I have only recently added the above sentence after a discussion with one of my Doctor's from the excellent pain clinic, based in Torbay. This does affect concentration one of the reasons why I double then re-double my measurements and set ups. Before completing nearly 30 years of public service I and my wife Sandy, owned and ran, a small restaurant in Okehampton Devon. Prior to marriage I worked for my father in his various businesses, in the early days these were garages, which he bought in a run down state, then built them up before moving on, to start again. I took every opportunity in those early days, to work in his workshop's learning 'on the job' rather than as an apprentice. This, I suspect, is the reason why my building various model's in the early days, turned into model engineering, when funds allowed the required equipment to be bought. My workshop comprises one half of a detached double garage. It has a stud wall separating the two halves and unusually perhaps, its own shower/toilet/washbasin compartment! (the true reason for buying the bungalow - don't tell the wife!!!) It is fully insulated with a ceiling and fluorescent lighting supplementing the one window. Several double electrical sockets are dotted around in relevant positions. Equipment consists of 2 lathes (1 Myford ML 10 and 1 Chinese variable speed motor with etched glass DRO's), 1 milling machine (RF25 far East) floor standing pillar drill, Proxxon bandsaw, Warco bandsaw, 6" wire brush and polishing mop motor, 6" coarse and fine grinder, Proxxon mini drill, various benches and an engineers vice. I have just acquired a third lathe, a Myford ML7 which I am at present evaluating so I can decide which of the Myford's I will keep. I have only just bought the Chinese lathe and had it fitted with DRO's prior to delivery. And what a bonus they are! So good in fact that I decided to buy another set for the Milling machine. Whilst my engineering experience can only be described as limited, I find the use of DRO's has affected my accuracy levels which have improved tremendously (although that's not saying much!) and would recommend their fitting to any model engineer. Prior to retirement I built for my son's 17th birthday a Locost car. This was a tremendous project and a great feeling when it passed its test. The book it was based on suggests it can be built for £250. Ours was nothing special in the sense of all new parts but still cost about £900 to build!
This entry was posted in General engineering posts, How to.............. and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to How to remove a sheared bolt.

  1. Those extractors look a lot better than the ones that I tried which were a little like a reversed countersink bit.

  2. Mr. York Saw says:

    I really appreciate your quick tutorial.

    I was suffered with a sheared bolt problem about six weeks ago and your post would have saved me quite a bit of time. Also, the photos are really helpful too.

  3. Mike Freeman says:

    Hello Andy, yes these are part of a set of metric taps from Screwfix. Not an expensive set either

  4. Mike Freeman says:

    That’s very kind of you. I will be adding more tutorials over time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Follow Me