Worst Thing Ever

[low end fuzz]

so im screwing my neck to the body; pilot holes are all good and straight;lined up and what not;

put all my screws in about 7/8s the way ; go back to tighten them to the body and 'snap';worst thing ever!

there is a good 3-4mm of hole between the surface and the broken screw; the screw broke at the beginning of the thread. it must of grabbed a little to much of the lyptus on the side.

first i tried to make a new slot in the broken piece to fit a screwdriver inside to screw it out; but after the slot was made it was to soft to try to turn and couldnt hold its form; about now i was ready to try anything; i considered moving the hole, but that would mean plugging alot of things visible; i was going to do the same thing and make a plate for the back of the body/neck joint; but moving the screws that much would look 'tarded; so what i ende up doing (with stress and regret) was cut about half the heel off from back and bottom to make a step to get me past the end of the broken screw, so i could grab vice grips and turn it out;

now the grips wont work; they have nothing to grab onto i guess; so ,now im pissed (moreso) so i grab my smalles chisel and dig it out; now im left with a crater and half a heel.

i redrilled the crater to 1/4'' and filled the hole w'dowel ;

tommorow im gonna refit a piece onto the bottom of the heel; the problem is its so awkward theres gonna be gaps and glue lines; and im gonna have to refinish at least most of the neck!

it sucks because theres a small piece of removed wood that shows in the corner of my neck pocket;

so im thinkin of epoxyin the **** out of it; sand it level/smooth and paint/shade the defective area to hide the joint; whick sucks because its a 5 piece neck with a 6 piece heel of all bright colours ;maple/purple/lyptus;osage

and i dont know how to make it look good

and that s how i turned a 20 minute job of screwing the neck bridge and machine heads on, into a 2 hour job that got nothing done

[Setch]

For next time, cut a disposable plug cutter out of a piece of small diameter metal tubing. Even somethign soft like brass works for a 1 use tool.

[ryanb]

I agree. Use a plug cutter to core out the broken screw and fill it in cleanly with a dowel plug that won't show.

It sounds like either your pilot holes were not deep enough, or your screws were too long.

[low end fuzz]

i think the problem was, my pilot holes were a size too small; they were definatly deep enough;

as for a plug hole cutter; i get the idea (i think) of metal tubing; im guesing you would make a drilling motion with it to cut a round hole into the wood around the screw; but how would you remove the 'dowel' (containg the screw) from the wood?

[erikbojerik]

I always add a little bit of soap to the threads of my screws before screwing down. Not much, just enough to they don't bind.

[Desopolis]

also, another old metal working trick, find a friend with a welder run a good piece of copper to the top of the screw, then on the other side(missing the head) tack a piece of steel to the bolt. may burn the edge alittle, but its coming out.

I can say I havent tried this on wood, but on steel its awesome and is now my #1 try..