Inexpensive bolt extractor

Getting my ballscrew machined and threaded soon. I am now looking at all the other small items to get for removing sleeves. Gregger graciously shared the list of spiral end taps and highlighted the specs for the two most common.

What else are people carrying? Any specific magnets to get the cone out? McMaster has all sorts of magnet strengths. What about picks? The 'L' Shaped ones work best?

I will be pulling galvanized Ø3/8" sleeved power bolts in a few weeks and want to make sure I can do my best to reuse the existing holes with the proper tools at hand.

Thanks.

Magnet - 1/4" x 1" rare earth works pretty well. $0.65.   7 lb pull. I glued mine into a ~6" brass tube with a 1/4" inside diameter. Fill the remaining length of brass tube with a dowel and glue.

http://www.magnet4less.com/product_info.php?products_id=106

gregger,
I was looking at wrenches and weighing the difference between a fabbed one like yours, a standard box wrench (40mm is $10 on eBay albeit heavy), and a 40mm bicycle flat plate wrench.

How much torque are you putting on the ballscrew? If it's considerable I wouldn't want the flat bicycle one as it would eat into the palm.

Found 10 magnets for $7 shipped on eBay matching the specs you listed above. A side note for those grabbing magnets. A bic pen ID is just slightly over Ø.25 so you can glue the magnet into the pen tube and then tie a lanyard onto it through a small drilled hole on the other end.

Re: torque - Hard to say. The bolts I have removed recently haven't fought back much. 10-15 lbs torque at most. In the past I have run across rusty 1/2" sleeves that have broken Acme threads on the previous model Doodad tool (full body weight on a 12" wrench). Not sure how the ball screw or your flat bike wrench would fare in that scenario. The nice thing about the ~7" square handle on the homemade handle is that it is easy to extend it with a crescent wrench or vise grips. The flat wrench might be a little annoying since there is no shoulder on that ball nut base plate - you would occasionally slip off and bang your knuckles. 

Got my magnet set up and ready to go. Spliced some 2mm dyneema reflective cord to the pen tube and a spliced eye on other end for carabiner. Spare magnet shown for reference. The magnet is very tightly pressed in.

Although a 9mm tap can work in a 3/8" sleeve, 9mm taps and dies are extraordinarily rare and difficult to find. A 3/8-16 tap works, and taps like that are available for ~$6 at nearly any auto parts store. Since taps break easily if you over-torque them, it is better to get a heavy duty spiral tap like the one mentioned up thread. Here in Denver you can pick them up at Western Tool Supply. Check to see if they have a store near you. Expect to pay $20-$30 for the tap there. Ordering from http://discount-tools.com/rfn-106fp.cfm  is the best deal for a high quality spiral tap. Either of these will work well, but the H-5 takes 5 turns before it cuts full depth threads - that might work slightly better at keeping the sleeves from tearing in half when you start pulling.

3/8-16 H-3  3RFN-28578 $ 13.05 

3/8-16 H-5  3RFN-28582 $ 13.05

I've tried using the tap cut threads and then using an eyebolt screwed into the threads + funkness to pull out the sleeve. In my limited experience (1 bolt), funking on the eye bolt just stripped the threads. I tried recutting new threads once or twice more before I couldn't even cut any threads in the sleeve anymore. Do you think the problem is with the funknessing or the tap and threads? Would I have better results if I used a DooDad puller as opposed to funknessing an eyebolt?

The funkness device is a poor choice for removing sleeves. It can work ok on 3/8 cones if you use the original bolt and hanger after removing the sleeve, but you will bend your draw stud if you use that. 1/2" cones fight back too much and funking can make matters worse. On Saturday I spent several minutes trying that, but in the end the Doodad was the way to go. If you are working on wedge bolts and just have a spinner tool and an eye nut + funkness, it can work (but I wouldn't recommend it for the sake of your wrists and elbows.) 

Old, rusted 3/8" sleeves are one of the most time-consuming bolt styles to remove. Forgetting to disengage the cone is a possible mistake that will add to the frustration. If the bolt is rusty, go ahead and tap 8 or more threads so you can screw the draw stud in deep as possible. Use a wrench to get it to engage the shallower threads near the end even more. Add a squirt of water. Pull slowly with a Doodad, a Hurley, or a hydraulic punch driver. It will work every time if you persist.

The 5/16-18 threads are for the 3/8 cones.

Sorry, I forgot to clarify I'm working with 3/8" sleeve bolts. I couldn't just use the hook because they were Cobra sleeve bolts not the 5 pieces.

Guess I'll need to try the DooDad puller in the future. Problem is, I don't really have any of the tools required to make one, except for the 3/8" tap. Any chance somebody on here wants to make one and sell it to me? There's a few bolts at the local crag that are looking like they're gonna need to go within the next few years. That's what we get for using PS in limestone. We have gotten almost 30 years out of them, though. 

eli poss wrote:

Sorry, I forgot to clarify I'm working with 3/8" sleeve bolts. I couldn't just use the hook because they were Cobra sleeve bolts not the 5 pieces.

Guess I'll need to try the DooDad puller in the future. Problem is, I don't really have any of the tools required to make one, except for the 3/8" tap. Any chance somebody on here wants to make one and sell it to me? There's a few bolts at the local crag that are looking like they're gonna need to go within the next few years. That's what we get for using PS in limestone. We have gotten almost 30 years out of them, though. 

Eli, I've come up with a puller tool that doesn't require tools to make, just a bunch of threaded rod, washers, spacers, and nuts all available at hardware stores. I'll take some pics of it and post up when I get home. 

My extremely basic but functional DIY sleeve puller. Nothing but threaded rod, nuts, washers, and a piece of pipe(painted red for easy finding if dropped). It gets the job done, although it is less than ideal since you can drop parts if you're not careful, and it requires a carrying bag. I carry a few different threaded rods for different bolt diameters. 

randy88fj62 wrote:

Cones do not come out with a magnet. They are wedged in very tightly. 1/2" cones can get racked off-axis in the hole if you try to funk them and be very difficult to remove. A slow pull is usually better. 3/8" cones often can be funked with the original bolt and hanger after you have removed the sleeve(s).

These are draw studs that I made before last weekend's Castle Rock re-bolt:

The ones with a golden patina are Grade8, which is harder to machine but will last longer in this application. The ones that look like plain steel are Grade5 - better than AllThread, but not as hard/brittle as Grade8. I don't have a lathe and I'm not a metalworker, so these are pretty ugly. Still, they don't take a lot of expensive tools for you to manufacture them, just time and determination. 

Threads: the 5 draw studs on the left are for 3/8" 5-piece bolts. The tip is reduced to 5/16-18, but the rest is 3/8-16. It was originally a 5 inch hex bolt, but I lopped off the head to cut 3/8-16 threads on that end. (The flat spot is for using a crescent wrench, but some of the folks last weekend ruined the threads by clamping vise grips on the business end instead...[sigh].)

The 5 on the right are for 1/2" 5-piece bolts. Used to be a 7/16-20 hex bolt. The other end is now 3/8-16. All of these draw studs screw into the spinner tool coupling nut which is attached to the puller, just as if you were pulling a wedge bolt. 

If you don't want to make a custom draw stud like this but still want to pull cones, you will need another reducer coupling nut to get from 3/8-16 to 5/16-18. They exist. The connection will be longer, so you may need additional spacer tubing to account for that. 

Gregger.  I'm using one of your doodad pullers and spinner tools, and we were having some issues with the draw studs bending and breaking.  On one puller we had the draw stud bend, and potentially even the coupler nut was bent.   The square tubing is bending alot as well.  Do you have any tips for getting a straight pull?  Do you use washers of anything on the rock?  Also in your coupler nuts is the ReNu insert glued in or anything ?  Thanks for all the info !

AllThread draw studs are crap, so if that's what you are using I would get something with better steel. At Ace Hardware you can get a 3/8" double-ended automotive stud that's ~3" long. That won't work for every Rawl, but it would work for the shorter ones and it's black oxide hardened steel. 

If you are bending up the tubing pulling wedges, you might not be spinning long enough. You can use black pipe instead, but you would give up the square nut portion and might have more failures from breaking the bolts under torsion. If the original hole was drilled perpendicular to the rock, the footprint of the square tubing isn't far off of how the bolt hanger should have sat on the rock.

ReNu inserts - I have used Red Loctite on some and 5 minute epoxy on others. The bolts get really hot, so either adhesive might give way and need to be refreshed after a lot of use.

Greg,

I’ve been following this thread, and am interested in trying to build my own version of the latest iteration with the ball screw.  I was pretty impressed with how easily you were pulling bolts at Castle Rock while I was cranking away on a wrench on the previous version.  I debated emailing you, but I think others will have similar questions, so I’ll leave the conversation here.

I found the ball screw on ebay, and understand what you’re saying about cutting off the end and rethreading it.  I’ve never used a die to cut threads.  I’ve used a hand tap a few times (mostly pulling bolt sleeves), and that was pretty straight forward.  Is using a die similarly easy?  I’m wondering if I should just find a machine shop to thread the end for me?  But it seems that adding threads comes up in making a lot of these tools, so maybe I should just learn to do it.  It would be nice to be able to make custom draw studs, etc.

What would I have to pay to get a decent set of dies?  It looks like amazon has sets starting at $40, but the reviews make them sound like junk.  Bosch has a small set for $140, and I’ve liked everything I’ve bought from them, but that’s a lot of money.  I may be able to buy individual parts instead of a kit, but haven’t fully looked into that yet.

On the handle – how did you locate the holes so that they align with the holes in the ball screw?

Thanks for all the great information on this thread!

You don't need a full set of dies, but you will be better off paying for a quality set. It is trickier to get a die started and it takes more force than using a tap. Dies can break, too, but it's not as common. Since you are in the Denver area, you might want to check out Charlie's 2nd Hand Tools on 22nd and Larimer. I've bought single taps and dies there that are slightly used but much higher quality than cheap new stuff. (I've also found good woodworking chisels made in the 1940's there at 1/10th the cost, but don't get me started on that.)

You'll need a 3/8-16 and a 5/16-18 to make draw studs for 3/8 and 1/2" Rawls (start with a 7/16-20 bolt for the larger one.)

You'll need a 1/2-20 to make the Doodad tool. Getting the die started is harder if you are grinding down the diameter by hand so be sure to purchase the one with 12mm threads. I use a digital caliper a lot in my shop and noticed that just a few 0.001" will make the difference between cutting threads and struggling. (If you don't have a caliper and had to grind the ballscrew threads off from scratch, you could simply drill a 1/2" hole in a piece of wood and keep grinding until the un-threaded end passes easily through the hole to know that it's time to start cutting threads.)