Unscrew It

Unscrew It — A Practical Walkthrough

I have been dealing with stubborn hardware fasteners for over a decade now. Stripped screws, corroded bolts, rounded hex heads — you name it. Early on I tried the usual hacks: rubber bands, left-hand drill bits, impact drivers, solvent soaks. Some worked, most wasted time. Eventually I settled on a tool I now keep on every job bench. It is called Unscrew It. Unscrew It is a removal system — not a single screwdriver, but a complete approach to extracting damaged fasteners. The core concept relies on a threaded extractor cone that bites into the inside of a stripped screw head when driven in reverse. Unlike standard easy-outs that rely on hammering a tapered spiral flute into pre-drilled pilot holes, the Unscrew It design uses a self-centering geometry that grabs the remaining material without needing precise alignment. That distinction matters more than people realize. The process starts with cleaning the fastener. I use a wire brush and penetrating oil, let it sit for five to ten minutes depending on corrosion severity, then wipe away residue. A dirty screw seat defeats almost any extraction method. Next, select the closest matching Unscrew It cone size. The cones are color-coded and labeled by screw diameter range — M3 through M12 on the standard set. Start by hand-turning the cone clockwise into the damaged head until it seats. Then switch to reverse. The threads cut into the screw walls and the tapered profile wedges tighter as torque increases. At that point a standard T-handle or ratchet does the work. Most M5 and M6 screws come out in under thirty seconds once seated correctly.

I learned this the hard way on a 2014 MacBook chassis repair. The logic board mounting screws were M1.4, completely rounded. Standard extractors were too large. I ended up drilling a 0.3mm pilot hole — barely visible — and using the smallest Unscrew It cone. The screw lifted clean in one turn. Without that tool I would have cracked the aluminum bracket trying to pry it out.

Common mistakes that waste your time

The biggest error I see is skipping the pre-drilled step on hardened steel screws. Unscrew It cones are designed for soft to medium-hardness fasteners — carbon steel, brass, aluminum. If you are working with grade 8.8 or higher, the cone will glance off the surface instead of biting. In those cases drill a shallow pilot hole at 60 to 70 percent of the screw diameter before applying the cone. Second mistake: using a hammer to start the cone. The self-centering design handles alignment on its own. Impact driving it misaligns the threads and strips the remaining material further. Unscrew It does not solve every stripped fastener problem. It fails on completely sheared-off bolts where no head remains — there is nothing for the cone to grab. It also struggles with brass and soft aluminum screws that have been over-torqued until the threads collapsed inward rather than rounded out. In those situations the cone sinks too deep without developing enough holding pressure. For that case I fall back to a weld-nut method: weld a small nut onto the remaining stub and turn from there. Not every job needs Unscrew It. Knowing when to move on is the skill. The full Unscrew It kit is available directly from the manufacturer at unscrewit.tool. Third-party retailers like Amazon and Toolstation carry the individual cone sizes. A standard M3–M12 set runs roughly 45 euros. The smaller precision set for electronics work is around 28 euros. Both include a T-handle driver and sizing chart.

One thing worth noting: the cones wear out. After about 50 extraction cycles on mild steel the threads lose their bite. I replace them in batches rather than waiting for a failure mid-job. A single stripped screw on a production line costs more in downtime than a whole set of cones.

Summary of when to reach for it

Stripped Phillips or hex sockets in soft or medium-hard steel — use Unscrew It directly. Hardened steel — drill a pilot hole first. Sheared bolts — forget it, use welding or trepanning. Collapsed threads in brass — skip to a different method. That covers the situations where it earns its place on the bench. Everything else is still a hammer and penetrating oil kind of day.