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| stripped screw head |
When the time comes for minor home improvement tasks, our staffers are – for the most part – a pretty competent bunch, which is why they're glad that they almost never have to turn to the likes of eHow.com and its more current niche sites for help with an unfamiliar task. Not so, however, many of the people who actually
wrote the content formerly housed at eHow: no, an astonishing portion of them were pretty inept DIYers. In that group, we're sad to have to include one
Kayar Sprang (we assume that's a pen name for K. R. Sprang or perhaps K. R. Springs), who tried and failed to explain "
How to Remove Rusted Stripped Screws"¹ at Hunker.com.
Sprang was clearly confused about the meaning of "stripped" in this context. While the vast majority of people in
our shop think of a screw with a damaged head when the phrase "stripped screw" comes up, Kayar told her readers that,
"Once metal screws become corroded, the rust can bind the screws to the holes they are set in. If the screw heads are covered with rust, it makes them impossible to remove with a screwdriver. Even if you can turn the screws with a screwdriver, their threads and head can become stripped. Rusted, stripped screws can be difficult to remove..."
Based on our reading, Sprang is wavering between the concept of a damaged head or a screw seized by corrosion. Either way, she's in trouble, because Kayar had no idea how to get out of this particular pickle, which is why
she asked Al of "Al's Home Improvement" how to get that screw out of there.
We note here that Al agrees with our staff: a stripped screw is one whose "
head stips [sic] out to where the screwdriver won't fit tight and slips." Kayar followed Al's suggestions, sort of, except
- She never mentioned cutting a new slot with a hacksaw, even though Al said that first.
- She said to drill a hole in the head, insert a Phillips screwdriver, and "lightly tap" it. That ain't gonna work...
- She then said that if that doesn't work, "Place a larger bit in the drill... Slowly drill down into the screw until it becomes freed from the hole."
Such is the folly of getting your DIY instructions from another freelancer. There's no mention of a
screw extractor (Al apparently doesn't like them), and Sprang apparently doesn't realize that her "drill it out" method doesn't free a screw, because the action of drilling will
tighten a screw.
If that's not a
Dumbass of the Day "answer," we don't know what is...
¹ The original has been sent to the rewrite team by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was v
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