Ridgid 4330 screws too tight!

[Bob Childress]

OK dang it. I am pretty happy with my Ridgid 4330 planer but it is time to flip the blades. Lo and behold I was only able to get all the machine screws loose on one blade. On the others, two or three of the allen heads stripped before the screw came loose.

Has anyone else had this problem? (Of course you have. ) And how did you solve it? Once I get them loose I can get replacements.

Any help appreciated.

[Andy Sowers]

yeah... mine were a bear to get loose, but I managed to get them free without stripping them. so I'm not much help, sorry!

[Bill Huber]

It is a problem....... be there done that......


First you need to be using a good allen wrench, not the one they gave you.

Second make sure the wrench is all the way in.

Now if that still did not work and you can not get it loose what I did was take a small metal chisel and tape the head on the side to break them loose. That worked on the two I had a problem with.

When I put them back in I put a little Never Seeze on them for the next time. I also replace about 6 of them with new screws.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I'll Second that anti sieze

An old machine shop trick is:
1.) Cut an allen wrench down so you have a long straight section of allen wrench.
2.) Insert the straight bit in the allen screw socket.
3.) use vice grips on that allen wrench and tap the end with a light hammer (straight down into the screw) while applying torsion force.
Works every time.

Then go find the bozo who torqued it in like and take a ball pien hammer to his steel toes.

As I recall the Torwx wrenches and bolts were a NASA development that used a neat trick to get the perfect torque. The system used specialty wrenches made from a specific steel and hardened just so:
You tightened them till the wrench broke and that way obtained the torque spec dead on. At least that was ther idea. I don't know how well it worked in practice.

[Bob Childress]

Follow up post. Thanks Cliff and Bill. Was able to get them out using a combination of screw extractors and the cold chisel technique.

Now if I can get it all back together again with no left over pieces.