Work on Shady Lady has been progressing slowly, as I'm able to squeeze out a few hours here and there. Tonight I think I made a breakthrough on the removal of the steel hull fasteners. Over the past year and a half, I've struggled removing screws, as they seemed cemented in place; I've broken screw removal bits, had screws split in half from the pressure applied by either a brace or a tap wrench, had them snap off when using an impact driver, and have had to resort to drilling and backing out with an insert bottle majority of times.
Tonight I found something that makes them come out like butter! A soldering iron... Yes I said a soldering iron. I had one screw that looked perfect, clean slot, no rust, but refused to come loose. I had read somewhere, I think it was an article about an old boat surveyor, about the possibility of applying heat to loosen a screw. So on this one, I plugged in the iron, and held it in the hole I had drilled for the blackout bit for about thirty seconds; i mean what the hell do i have to lose right? When I put the bit back in and turned, the thing gave way as if it hadn't been fighting me for the whole 20 minutes prior -"who? Me?"
After that I did about a dozen screws in succession, in about an hour, without a single refusal.
A soldering iron, who'd a thunk it?
