Alden Grabit Broken Bolt and Damaged Screw Exractors, 4-Piece Set

Cheap (2008-11-19)
Very cheap metal, high strength steel would have been better, first time I used it the extractor side broke because it is made of cheap metal!

Glad I bought them (2008-11-12)
So about year and a half ago I hung a 19 flatscreen on the wall in the den. And it was a horrible experience.

You see, whoever the "engineer" was that designed it should be flogged and their engineer credentials shoved up their...

You had to screw two 1/4×3" screws (those are pretty big) into a 2×4 stud in the wall using a hex key. A hex key is the hardest tool to work with, and stripped out the head of the screw about 1/4" away from being tight. That's after pre-drilling the hole. So the whole mount has been loose all this time. And you can't undo it because the hex key stripped out the head. The words coming out of my mouth at the time would have made a truck driver blush.

So it finally came time that I wanted to fix it by doing it right and replace the crappy screws they sent with proper lag bolts you'd install with a socket wrench.

So I bought the Grabit screw extractors. Sure they're late night TV fodder, but figured I'd give it a shot, as the set was cheaper than individual screw extractors at Home Depot.

And they worked wonderfully.

I had those crappy screws removed in about 5 seconds.

Then using a proper method of a socket wrench had the whole thing remounted in about 2 minutes instead of the half hour I spent the first time cussing and yelling.

Anyways, the set of Grabits are [........], and every tool kit should have a set.

Not As Good As Hoped (2008-10-31)
After snapping a few deck screws last summer I thought they might be handy to have a set of ez-outs. My fist annoyance was they were shipped by the "AsSeenOnTVGuys" with insufficient postage. So I left the postman the 22 cents and got them the next day.

With no immediate need I tested them by driving a few screws into some pine & cedar deck boards & purposely striping the heads. Following the direction I drilled out the head with the left hand bit and the switched to the cone end to extract the screw applied some pressure, no luck. So after experimenting I found I had to put a lot pressure the drill & go as slow as possible; best done by using my old cordless drill with a half charged battery. I had almost as much luck with the left hand drill end.

In the end they do work but you may still have to work at it.

Works, sometimes (2008-10-21)
Works on short screws. I tried extracting SS 2.5" screws from pine and it plain old didn't work. Thank God for Vise Grips and patience.

Deceptive packaging. Doesn't do the job. (2008-10-15)
This product is a prime candidate for the Consumer Reports "Selling It" feature. The packaging states "Extracts screws up to 4-In." The instructions in the packaging state "Tool can be compromised if extracting large screws (bolts) exceeding 2 inches in length and/or have aggressive threads." Deduct two stars for misleading packaging. It removed my 3-inch screw about one-quarter inch before stripping. Following the instructions for re-burnishing and trying again did not work. Deduct two more stars. This product may very well work with 2-inch screws, but will likely require some practice. Going even slightly too fast will strip out the screw head again. If you have any screws over two inches, this is not the way to go.