Inevitably, as you take on home improvement projects, you’ll be challenged with stuck, rusted fasteners. Luckily, there are ways to approach these problems with less frustration and a greater chance of success.

PB Blaster is your greatest friend and ally.
It’s available at most hardware or auto parts stores and leads the pack when compared to similar products. This stuff is for metal fasteners that are screwed into or onto metal. That’s good, because that’s where you’ll have the worst problems.

First, be sure to clean up the portion of the bolt or screw that the tool will engage–you want to maximize your gripping surface any way you can. Take a wire brush to rusty nuts and scrape paint or dirt out of a screw head.

I have 3 simple rules when it comes to stuck fasteners–Juice, heat, and impact. That’s my mantra. Know it. Use it. Live it.

You can’t always use all three, for instance you can’t crank up a propane torch and heat a gas fitting until it glows; you’ll blow yourself up and your fitting will still be stuck. Also, I’d rather not see you spray PB Blaster all over your beautiful wood door, but sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

Back to the mantra. Juice means, to soak the junction with penetrant and let it soak in for a few minutes. Heat means, to get the problem area as warm as you can, without causing any fires, explosions, or critical damage to your flippers or other valuables. It’s best to warm up the female side of the connection, so it expands away from the threads. Impact means, don’t use a torquing motion (turning motion) to try to loosen a bolt, but rather hit your tool in the correct direction to unscrew it, either with your palm or a hammer. It also helps to tap a bolt head square on the top several times with a hammer or tap a screwdriver into the slot with the hammer.

All of these steps help break up corrosion on the threads, without twisting the head off of the screw; the juice gets in between the 2 parts, the heat causes expansion and contraction which also loosens the corrosion, and the impact physically breaks the corrosion apart.

It may take several tries, but with practice, you’ll find that problem fasteners aren’t such a problem anymore.