This Dummy Needs a Punch

Metal tap for threading holes

Freelance writers habitually pretend experience and knowledge they lack in reality, presumably to lend credence to the wonderful advice they are sharing. By "sharing," I actually mean "rewording from another source." If they get it right, fake experience is usually harmless (except perhaps to their karma). If they get it wrong, it just looks ludicrous. Take eHow.com's Larry Parr, who displayed his ignorance (again) even as he claimed experience in an article called "How to Use a Screw Extractor" at CareerTrend.com. At CareerTrend? really? Larry told us that to use a screw extractor, you need a "metal tap," and here's how you'd use it:

"Strike your metal tap with your hammer to make a small indentation in the top of the damaged screw or bolt."

Larry got confused about metal-working tools here, folks, making it pretty obvious that any experience implied by his introductory paragraph

"If you've been around tools for very long you've probably run into a situation where the head of a screw has become stripped or the head of a bold [sic] has broken off..."

Metal starter Punch

...just wasn't real (besides which, he can't spell "bolt"). No, what Larry meant is to use a metal punch to make a dimple in the shaft of a screw or bolt whose head has broken off. You see, he conflated the tools used in two separate solutions: if you have to completely drill out a bolt (not a "bold") instead of use a screw extractor, you'll need a metal tap to create threads on the new, smooth-sided hole. You don't smack taps with hammers, dumbass, and any Dumbass of the Day who'd ever used a screw extractor would know the difference! 

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DD - HAND TOOLS