Screw Holders

How many of you have had to shorten a screw and either damaged it, lost it, or even worse had it injure you?.... Yeah, pretty much everyone that works in a shop has burned their fingers, or had the grinder grab a screw and launch it into oblivion or crunch it to an unusable state.... Pliers?.... Nope, useless, been there, done that, got the T-shirt.... Well here is an idea I came up with to avoid that problem, and it even straightens the theads when you are finished munching on them....

http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/o...ps0d5ilzoj.jpg

Just take a piece of scrap band iron or angle, and drill and tap some holes in it for the different screws you commonly use, particularly the smaller sizes, which are so difficult to hang onto.... I used a piece of 1" x 1/8" for the machine screws, and a piece of 3/16" thick 1"x1" angle for the bolts.... I marked the ends to indicate what the threads were with a Dremel.... You simply insert the screw in the hole, let it stick out the back, and put your finger against the head to prevent it from rotating and grind away.... The metal works like a heat sink to some degree, if it gets hot enough to burn your finger, you likely are getting the screw too hot and destroying the temper anyway, time to dunk it.... If it's a really short setcrew, stick an allen key in the socket to keep it from turning while you grind it....

Finally, a way to shorten screws without losing or destroying them or getting hurt.... I'm sure somebody else thought of this long ago, but I've never seen it before....

Bob

I used the same idea a few years back when Crosman was having problems getting an odd-sized grub screw in stock for one of their muzzle brakes (very short screw)- idea works well, but gets to be a real pain after about the 10th consecutive screw (in a batch job).