Drilling set screw

chances of chipping them out?

Might be a job for the "good 'ol flame wrench" ! What size screw?

It is the only SURE way of removing it without damaging something else.

You could likely anneal it if it was out of the casting - but it will likely cool too quickly in the casting.

It's worth a try! Spot heat, using a tiny torch tip, then keep applying heat intermittently, slowing the cooling. If there's seals near that need protecting, a wet rap wrapped around the shaft near the seal will do wonders. Likely not an issue, anyway, and there's countless numbers of seals on the market, one of which may work perfectly well, or can be adapted to work just as well. In spite of the claims to the contrary, I have no expectation that heating the screw won't anneal it enough to permit drilling.

I also endorse the EDM idea, but that may not be a choice.

Someone mentioned the use of a left hand drill. Great idea. Heat first, then try drilling. Fair chance the drill will bite and remove the screw. Stranger things have happened. If it works, it will happen so fast you won't believe your eyes.

Heating in and of itself will produce results. If you can heat the screw hot enough to degrade the rust, most of the problems will have been solved.

Harold

Maybe in Canada but in the UK A2 and A4 are commonly used for stainless steel fasteners with no s on the end. The UK designation for the air hardening tool steel was BA2 according to my link.

I've solved a lot of stuck fastener problems just by using a propane torch and a can of LPS 1. Heat, spray, heat, spray, repeat as needed. Sometimes it takes more than just a few go-arounds to get things loosened up. In this case, I'd be heating the hole area, not the fastener. Doesn't have to be red heat, just enough to expand things. Then there was the nazi superbolt in the VW shock mount, drilled that one out until it shucked the flutes off the drill, then spent three days with a mini-die grinder and a handful of pink aluminum oxide points grinding it out to the hole threads and picked the bits out with a dental pick. I've had the most success with left- hand bits on wood screws. Rusted bolts usually will drill or will break the drill bit, but don't move until they're cored out.

Stan

I hadn't thought of the die grinder solution. I may try that before the chip-it-out exercise.

Thanks

If you are using a handheld drill and not getting any chips out, your next best bet would be to (borrow one if you don't have one) use a benchtop drill press set up on blocks, at the correct angle so the quill downfeed would be constant and steady.

My box-store Ryobi ~10" benchtop could be set up in place, and definitely has enough power to drill those screws out.

Those little 5-speed $50 drill presses probably aren't any better than (or even as good as) a decent hand drill. A friend suggested I could use his

A quality cobalt drill or masonry carbide (and a good cutting lubricant) should cut the screws with a steady, constant feed, which is often difficult to do with a handheld drill.

I used a Dremel #9911 Tungsten Carbide Bit - Diameter 1/8" to bore through a snapped off "easy-out" successfully. It was slow, hard going and a lot of sparks flew... But it gouged it out and amazingly (to me anyway) didn't look any worse for wear afterwards. This page (don't know anything about the supplier, just for reference) shows some of the bits offered by Dremel:

Stainless will also rust, just a different "rust".. Happens especially easily when the body is normal steel and a stainless fastener touches the steel body. Anybody using same tools for normal steel and stainless knows how easy it is to get rust spots to stainless..

Still, propably a normal carbon steel setscrew..

One neat drilling solution is to used the normally ground drills that are made like masonry drills - with a tungsten carbide (or such) insert.. These will drill quite hard materials..

(...)

Can the assembly be submerged in a plastic bucket so you could use electrolytic derusting to fix the first- order problem?

Pete has a nice writeup here:

--Winston

I have a big drill press but I don't see any way this is happening. the "piece" I'm working on is 4' long, the axle is 3' wide. The whole assembly weighs over 200#. The set screw is at about a 45 degree angle.

I'm using a 1/2" drill at slow speed. I'm able to really lean into it so I think the pressure is there, at least as much as should be put on

I understood the size/scale of the workpiece when it was described as a garden tractor.

My suggestion was to take a manageable size drill press to the tractor, and mounting/supporting it in a way that it could feed a drill steadily into the screw at the proper angle.

The same could also be accomplished with a Cole drill and some metal parts and clamps. Benchtop drill presses are generally more common than Cole drills. You could, possibly, borrow either type.

With either method, the drill feed could be from the top, bottom or sideways, whichever is more convenient. The mechanical advantage of a steady quill feed will create chips.