Screwed

[loos]

Here's a little tale concerning my new Telecaster clone. Yesterday I managed to forget a cardinal rule concerning driving screws... if it feels too tight and even a wee bit funny; STOP!

I have been trying to find the source of a disconcerting Sitar like tone coming from my newly assembled first build of an electric guitar. So I thought I'd install a second string tree for the G and D strings. New parts in hand I drilled a pilot hole for the screw and started to apply the screwdriver. I felt a little mushy feeling as if the head of the screwdriver was slipping and then "tink". How I asked myself could a steel screw snap off in wood. Easy came the answer, really easy. So the day was spent figuring out how to remove the blasted thing. I've succeeded but what a process. There wasn't enough screw protruding to grab and I didn't want to scar the head of the neck by digging around so I thought awhile and then found a procedure which may be well known but in case it helps someone I thought I'd post it. First, at a hobby shop, I found a bit of 1/8" brass tubing which just fit over the threads of the broken screw. Then I filed teeth in the end of the tube and mounted it in a hand drill and slowly, stopping every few minutes to clear out the sawdust and to sharpen and reshape the tip, I cut around the broken screw until the tube was as deep as the tip of the screw at which time the little tube of wood with the screw imbedded just broke free and came out with the brass tube. Now to find a piece of maple or other hard wood to glue into the hole and then I can drill, this time a properly sized hole rather than the undersized one I had drilled yesterday, and thank goodness I'll be back where I thought I was yesterday with a (ha ha) five minute job installing a string tree.