screws frozen in planer head cutters

[bakerhardwoods]

Unfortunately I hit metal and need to change the cutters on my Lucas Mill planer.  The screws holding the cutters are very frozen in.  Even with the small 2.5 mm Hex key, the heads of the screws holding the cutters strip -- all 10 of them.  I sprayed a lot of penetrating spray first and let it sit, sprayed again, etc.

Any advice?  Is there a way to get them out other than drilling them out?  I don't want to mess up the planer, it is expensive.  What kind of shop would do this kind of work for me?

Thank you for any advice.  Frustrated. Tim Baker

[btulloh]

Are you sure they’re hex and not torx or torxplus?  Usually those inserts are put on with torx plus, whick would give make them much less likely to strip out.

Or prhaps red loctite was used.  Heat would be required if so.  

Heat can be helpful in either case. 

[sawguy21]

It is too bad you stripped the heads, you might have been able to break them loose by tapping on the wrench as you applied pressure. A little late for that now. You could try drilling into the heads to remove them then take the blades off. Now gently warm the drum as you apply pressure to the shanks with Vise Grips.

[Don P]

It's a hex and they do have red loctite on them. We have not had trouble yet but I would use heat, toss the inserts and order new bolts.

[Old Greenhorn]

Is this a spiral head with individual inserts? Or is it straight blades? Got a photo? That hex key sounds awful tiny for what it is doing. 2.5mm is less than an 1/8".

[YellowHammer]

Red Loctite?  That’s the wrong use for it.  It’s doing what it’s supposed to do.  Heat to soften the Red Loctite, tap in an easy out, remove them with a light air wrench, and replace them and use Blue Loctite.
 

[GAB]

Is this a spiral head with individual inserts? Or is it straight blades? Got a photo? That hex key sounds awful tiny for what it is doing. 2.5mm is less than an 1/8".

OG:
As an FYI: 1 mm is .03937"  (1.00" divided by 25.4 mm/")
For a ball park estimate use 40 thousands per mm.
You are right in saying it is less than an 1/8", it's less than .100".
GAB
 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well yeah, I know that (actually it's .0984", but I suppose 3/32 (.0932) is not accurate enough either?). The point is, it's dang small for holding in planer blades, so I was wondering if they are inserts, which commonly use torque head screws that are made to bend a little as they are tightened to drive the insert into the seat and keep it there. They have a special tapered head shape that might appear like a flathead, but it's not.
 Just trying to figure out what he has there so maybe we can help him out.

[btulloh]

  You’re both right!  Yes, 2.54 mm = 0.100 inch. Which is less than 1/8” - and less than 1/2”, and less than a furlong. It’s pretty small and an allen wrench that size won’t stand much torque. They must be pretty soft screws because usually the allen wrench gets rounded off in that situation- or breaks. 

[GAB]

The only thing i can think of that hasn't been mentioned is to weld a nut on top of the screw head and then take the screw out with a nut driver.  However we are talking such small screws that that is probably not feasable.
When doing something like this (I always hoped for less than a 100% failure rate).  In otherwords you suffered a lot of failures especially when welding on broken bolts in blind holes.
GAB

[YellowHammer]

I hate to rehash it, but the common head pattern for planer inserts, jointer inserts, and most other tapered head fasteners are #2 Torx, which is very close to an Allen wrench of almost the same size, which will fit, feel snug, then strip.

  

[Don P]

Changing inserts is a task my partner has always done, I'll try to remember to ask him tomorrow.

Bolts here;
Lucas Mill Carbide Insert Screw (Mx X Box Of 10 (baileysonline.com)

Inserts;
Lucas Mill Parts - Lucas Mill Portable Sawmills - Portable Sawmills - Sawmills & Planers (baileysonline.com)

Here's the instructional videos for the planer head;





Hmm, that bolt link is doing the disco, you can get to it from the insert link, its on pg3... you'll end up calling it in anyway but this lets anyone curious check out that attachment.

[Old Greenhorn]

While you were putting that up I was searching for the replacement parts and found them on Baileys, but their descriptions are not very helpful. What exactly is an Mx X 10 anyway?
What I did see is that the replacement screws, if the photo is accurate, are indeed hex ALLEN screws. These insert are not designed to what most cutting tool manufacturers use. They use a button head screw and the insert can float to allow setting them all to the same height...or not. Weird, but I guess it works for them and keeps the cost of the disc down. Also, best I can see. it looks like they use a 5mm allen key (.1968" for some folks, which is .0093" bigger than 3/16"), but I am not certain on that because I was making an assumption or two as I looked through the spare parts.

[rusticretreater]

There is no MX designation for metric screws on the ISO chart.  It appears to just be a place holder.  Because you have to call for ordering information, they probably look that up for you as there may be several screw sizes.

The Lucas Planer Disc kits that they sell come with red loctite so apparently that's what it requires to keep those screws in.

I can suggest three methods.  The first was previously mentioned and that is using a screw extractor

The second method: Determine the closest torx size to the hole.  You then need to get a bunch of those size torx bits, the kind that insert into nutdriver handles.  You also might need a special drill bit size to enlarge the hole just enough for a torx bit to be driven in. This will give you some bite. The disc needs to be held securely enough for you to hammer the torx bit into the rounded out hole. I am not sure a vise will be good enough to hold it, but it might. 

The third method is just using a hacksaw blade to cut a straight groove in the screw head for a heavy, short shank screw driver. 
 
Then you have to heat the area up to 500 degrees(2-3 minutes) with a propane torch and try to turn the screw out.  

I prefer the SECOND method because you can always try the first method if the second method fails.  And you can use the third method if the others dont work.

If this is successful, use some solvent such as acetone or lacquer thinner to soften up the loctite and then run a tap in the hole to remove the old loctite.

[YellowHammer]

Go to love Red Loctite.  When it says "permanent" on the bottle, they mean it.  The good news is that it softens pretty quick with heat.

[Don P]

The glue salesman stopped by the plant and wanted to show off their new glue, "It'll stick anything together".
After an hour of trying and unable to remove the cap we decided we didn't really need their best stuff.

I've never had trouble breaking red loose from anything, rust yes, thread goop no. The power of proper contamination  .

[blackhawk]

My Lucas manual calls out to use Loctite 222 for the planing head screws.  This is the low strength purple Loctite.  Lucas provides a bottle of the 222 with the planing head kit.

[bakerhardwoods]

Red Loctite?  That’s the wrong use for it.  It’s doing what it’s supposed to do.  Heat to soften the Red Loctite, tap in an easy out, remove them with a light air wrench, and replace them and use Blue Loctite.
 

Thank you for the tip.  Red Loctite came with the planer. 

[bakerhardwoods]

Is this a spiral head with individual inserts? Or is it straight blades? Got a photo? That hex key sounds awful tiny for what it is doing. 2.5mm is less than an 1/8".

Yes, 2.5 mm is very small.

[bakerhardwoods]

Changing inserts is a task my partner has always done, I'll try to remember to ask him tomorrow.

Bolts here;
Lucas Mill Carbide Insert Screw (Mx X Box Of 10 (baileysonline.com)

Inserts;
Lucas Mill Parts - Lucas Mill Portable Sawmills - Portable Sawmills - Sawmills & Planers (baileysonline.com)

Here's the instructional videos for the planer head;





Hmm, that bolt link is doing the disco, you can get to it from the insert link, its on pg3... you'll end up calling it in anyway but this lets anyone curious check out that attachment.

I'm a little curious what Mx means?  Shouldn't the x be a number?

[customsawyer]

I'm not familiar with the Lucas planer head but on my Slabmizer it has 5 cutters with rather small torx screws. I got a extra head when I got the machine so I don't have to change them on the machine. It is very easy to strip the heads out on mine. I have on one occasion just took a hammer and broken a couple of the cutters so I could get the vice grips on the screws. I don't know it that would work on your head or not.

[bakerhardwoods]

Good news.  One of my wood customers took the planer head to work where a guy with a screw extractor, left handed drill bit type of thing, took all the screws out easily.

There is a bottle of Loctite 222 that came with the planer.  I think it is in a red bottle (but I'm too lazy to go out to the shop to look).  Maybe that is where the "red" came from.

The pack of replacement cutters has arrived, but the screws aren't due until Friday.  I'm not going to try to use the old cutters.  They have two good edges, but part of each cutter insert is broken off. 

Everyone -- thank you for the ideas and suggestions.

[blackhawk]

Good news.  One of my wood customers took the planer head to work where a guy with a screw extractor, left handed drill bit type of thing, took all the screws out easily.

There is a bottle of Loctite 222 that came with the planer.  I think it is in a red bottle (but I'm too lazy to go out to the shop to look).  Maybe that is where the "red" came from.

The pack of replacement cutters has arrived, but the screws aren't due until Friday.  I'm not going to try to use the old cutters.  They have two good edges, but part of each cutter insert is broken off.  

Everyone -- thank you for the ideas and suggestions.

Loctite uses red bottles for most all of their threadlockers and other adhesives.  The "red" actually refers to the color of the liquid in the bottle.  Loctite 222 will be purple.
The screws are M4X0.7x8 button head screws.  M4 designates the thread outer diameter of 4mm.  0.7 is the thread pitch in mm.  The 8 designates the length of the screw in mm.