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Drill Out Broken Fastener and Extractor

7:19
11:42
593 views

At 7:19 in

I Screwed Up BIG TIME on This One...

What happens here

Faced with a broken extractor embedded in the bolt, the strategy shifts to drilling the entire fastener out. The presenter explains that after the initial 3/16 inch bit and extractor failed, they proceeded to use a series of larger drill bits (stepping up from 5/64ths to 15/64ths, skipping bits that broke) to gradually enlarge the hole and remove the remaining bolt material along with the broken extractor. This process effectively destroys the original threads but removes the obstruction.

Goal: Since the extractor broke, switch to drilling directly through the broken bolt and the embedded extractor using progressively larger drill bits until the remaining metal can be removed.

Tools and materials

  • Assorted Drill Bit Set
  • Cordless Drill
  • Safety Glasses

What they say

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the nut. I can just put another one in there. If somebody can tell me what I did wrong there or if just these bits are cheap and they're breaking, then I mean, I get it. That's the case and that's the case. So when the easy out broke in there, I try to take it out. 15 minutes is my max for anything like this, man. Forget it. So we're just going to take it. We're going to take the drill. We're going to drill that out of there and then we're just going to put a bolt and a nut through here. We're going to secure that in place and it's going to be good. So now what we're trying to do is just drill a hole and we're going to get this out as quickly as efficiently as we can. So I just wanted to talk about the process for a second. Once the easy out broke off in there, I just ended up going down the side of that easy out with a 5.64 bit. One of these over here, I ended up breaking both of them in the process. But once I got that somewhat started there, then I just went up from the eighth to the 9.64, the 5.30 seconds and I just stepped it up the whole way through the rest of my drill bits really until I got to this 15.64 and drilled that out.

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