Turn which way to loosen

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How can I remove a really stuck screw? Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 3 months ago. Active 6 years, 10 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. Steven Tester Tester k 73 73 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. I think thats against the spirit of the stack exchange board.

MattAdams This was in response to an earlier question about unscrewing a USB enclosure that had to be closed as off-topic because of the USB enclosure. We decided the more general question of how to remove a stuck screw was missing from the site. If you'd like to discuss the pros and cons of this, meta would be a good place to follow up.

There is even an option on the "Ask a Question" page, See. It is a great answer, just struck me as being out of line, but that blog post leaves me corrected. My apologies. Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Twist in the proper direction Are you turning the right way? Muscle The first thing to try, is simply to apply more inward force while turning. Use a screwdriver with a head that fits snugly in the screw head.

Put the palm of one hand on the back side of the screwdriver handle, and wrap your other hand around the handle ready to twist. Push the screwdriver as hard as you can with your back hand into the screw, and twist with your other hand. Lube Sometimes screws seize up due to rust, or other debris. Apply a liberal amount of penetrating oil to the area. Allow the oil to soak in for minutes. Try to remove the screw by conventional means, and using the technique above.

Rapping, Tapping, and Banging If both methods above have not worked, giving the area a sharp tap with a hammer might break the screw free.

Hit the screw and surrounding area with a series of sharp taps with your hammer. Impact Driver For really stuck screws, you can use a manual impact driver.

Attach a bit that fits snugly in the screw slot Set the driver to spin in the proper direction this process varies from tool to tool, but most commonly, you'll compress the driver and twist. Place the driver on the screw, and hold the driver as straight as possible keep you hands away from both ends of the tool. Give the back side of the driver a whack with a hammer a rubber mallet or non-marring hammer is good for this.

Repeat until the screw starts to twist most impact drivers have to be "reset" between strikes, so don't forget to reset the driver before whacking it again.

Once the screw is freed up, use a regular screwdriver to remove it. Drilling If you still cannot remove the screw, as a last resort you can drill the screw out.

Select a drill bit that is just smaller than the shaft of the screw you want to remove you may have to guess if you can't see the whole screw, but you can always go bigger later so start small. Place the bit in a drill. Place the tip of the bit in the center of the head of the screw. Drill until the screw comes free, or until you think you are deep enough.

If the screw did not come free, switch to a slightly larger bit and drill again. Explosives Remove the screw, and everything else in a 20ft. Place the charge on the screw. Light the fuse. Run like hell. Cover your ears. Bask in destructive glory. Improve this answer. Community Bot 1. Remove the screw with a pair of pliers. Drill a small hole into the head with an electric drill. Use a Dremel. Eumelia Meisel Pundit. How do you loosen tight bolts without tools?

Take two large coins 2 pence coins work perfectly for this and place them on either side of the nut. Grip the coins between the knuckles of your index and middle fingers for extra grip and twist in the direction needed to loosen the nut. Zuleyma Canfran Pundit. What is the best penetrating oil? Top 10 Best Penetrating Oil. Kano Aerokroil Penetrating Oil. Ask A Question. Co-authors: 3. Updated On: 11th July, Views: 1, Similar Asks.

How long does it take Jacaranda to grow? In both cases they needed to be taught, had no preconceptions, but soon got the idea and also readily generalised it. There was no underlying spooky intuition, but it was quickly understood. So my, -- probably somewhat unfashionable -- answer is that we are taught it. As we do a great deal of tightening and loosening of things in the modern world, having a more general form is useful.

The symmetry would probably break spontaneously even without any clockwise or anticlockwise biases. If things had fallen differently, we would all have been happy with doing it the other way around. In terms of history and narrative, as other answers point out, it was standardised by Whitworth when he standardised the screw.

It was widely believed at the time and still is that supination turning your palm upwards is stronger than pronation turning your palm downwards , which leads to a clockwise motion in the right handed being stronger, and so to be used for the more physically demanding task of screwing in.

While that's the tiny mote that tipped the scales one way and not the other, the scales were ready for the tipping and that this difference is largely irrelevant in most cases of use is itself irrelevant: it broke the symmetry. In my experience, it's just social norm. I work with many students in our labs who always turn cylinder valves and other knobs randomly. If they don't know from experience, they almost never have any confidence in the correct way, so that hints to me that it's something that's pervasively taught rather than intuitive.

I see no point to assume it's based on intuition in any way. For that claim, I see several possibly subjective? Instead, what seems much more likely is that one particular convention is followed. One convention that is so omnipresent that we learn it early on, as soon as we learn how to open bottles or how to use a water-tap. In fact, it may even be the case that the convention is so arbitrarily chosen that as opposed to many other somewhat arbitrary conventions that come in many variations around the world, e.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why to loosen always by rotating it counterclockwise and to tighten by rotating it clockwise? Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 7 months ago. Active 6 years, 7 months ago.