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You know how easy it is to strip the head on a screw

Or maybe it was the guy before you that did it.

The bottom line is you need to get that screw out.

Consider this scenario – You need to take the tail light off your car to change the bulb, but a Philips screw is striped.

You know you can't force it or you might break the plastic and you know what they charge for new tail lights these days.

There are actually quite a few ways you can choose from to get that screw out.

   1. Put a rubber band or duct tape over the head of the screw and then press real hard with the screw driver and slowly try and turn the screw.

   2. Use a hammer to try and tap the screw driver tip just a little deeper into the soft metal of the screw head.

   3. You might try to use epoxy glue to glue a nut on top of the screw. If the screw is not wedged in too tight you can the use a wrench to back the screw out.

   4. Use a screw extractor. There are different types available – just follow the instructions.

   5. Drill a hole in the center of the screw head. This may allow the screw driver to get in a little deeper and get a grip to turn the screw out.

   6. Use a thin grinding disk to cut a slot in the top of the screw.

   7. If the screw head is up high enough grab a hold of it with vise grips.

   8. Sometimes just using the next larger sized screw driver gives you enough grip.

   9. You could weld something to the top of the screw that you can get a grip on.

   10. As a last resort you could drill the head off the screw and leave the rest of the screw in the hole.

Here is a image of all the different types of screw heads that you might run across.

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If you have another favorite method of removing stripped screws, let us know in the comments.

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