Tiny Stripped Screws for Dummies

Very small screw

Some of our staffers are starting to think that we're in a rut here at the Antisocial Network. They've come to that conclusion for the simple reason that today's nomination is the second on what appears to be the same topic in just a couple of days. We promise you, however, that this nomination is for a completely different reason: oh, sure, Samantha Volz was every bit as far out of her comfort zone when writing "How to Remove Very Small Stripped Screws"¹ for HomeSteady.com as was her predecessor, but she blew it in a different way.

Where Kayar Sprang performed a half-assed copy-reword-paste job on some guy's personal website, Volz (as befits a former "full-time reporter") managed to find a somewhat more... mainstream set of instructions for the task at hand. Still, considering her self-professed professional chops, we'd have expected Samantha to be a better reader – or at least to have better critical thinking skills.

You see, Samantha's topic dealt with very small screws. That means that a lot of her suggestions are, to be blunt, useless. Take, for instance, this one:

"For instance, if the screw is stuck in a wooden shelf, remove the shelf from the shelving unit. This will allow you better access to the screw." 

Volz actually managed to link to a forum discussing just this problem: someone stripped a screw while installing a hard drive in their computer. So why was she babbling about wooden shelf units, where the screws are highly unlikely to be "very small"?
Samantha's other alleged solutions are equally unlikely, including,

"Get a screw extractor from a hardware store..."

...but we doubt you can find a screw extractor for a tiny screw. Oh, and Samantha? this is not how a screw extractor works:

"A screw extractor will enter the hole around the screw in order to properly remove it."

And last, but not least, we can't even conceive of what these instructions are supposed to mean:

"...make a hole in the middle of the screw’s head. Drill holes into the screw’s head using progressively larger drill bits, until the head of the screw is completely removed. Use pliers to pull or rotate the screw until it is removed."

Will someone tell our Dumbass of the Day that if you remove the entire head, there's nothing to grab with those pliers? Thanks: we were sick of dealing with her. We're not even gonna suggest the rubber band method to her readers...

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_5541415_remove-very-small-stripped-screws.html

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