Inexpensive bolt extractor

If you are looking for the heavy duty spiral taps that work best to extract Rawl sleeves, look here:

http://discount-tools.com/rfn-106fb.cfm

Western Tool Supply is another option:
westtool.com/products/CUTTI…

9mm taps and dies are harder to find, but the jury is still out on whether or not they are more successful at removing rusty 3/8" sleeves. The sleeves tend to tear apart and the 9mm is ~0.020" smaller than 3/8", leaving a tiny bit more metal.
I haven't yet tried a M9 heavy duty spiral tap. I'll report back if I can find one.

i took a standard 3/8 and 1/2 tap with your pipe tool extractor to the granite crags on Saturday and was unsuccessful in extracting the sleeves of Rawl 5 piece 1/2" bolts which had been placed about 5 years ago in a desert environment.

Someone has been stealing the hardware for the hangers and chain sets.

Couldn't get the taps to take in anything but the blue sleeves. The expansion sleeve is wedged in the hole for sure. Pick tool would not budge it. I could knock the cones down however. Must be I need the spiral bit bottoming taps.

I was able to reuse 3 of the holes however with a same length bolt glued in and screwed into the cone. 1/2" x 3 1/2". Overkill for desert granite.

Still on the learning curve for these sleeve anchors.

Thomas Beck wrote:[...]Still on the learning curve for these sleeve anchors.

Get the spiral taps - the 3/8" rusty Rawls are the most difficult and the 1/2" Rawls are easier than 3/8" studs. As long as the cone isn't rusted solid to the bolt, I'm up to about 98% confidence of success on the 1/2" removals. Cut as many threads as possible on the 3/8" sleeves to keep them from tearing apart. Gary Ballard suggests knocking the sleeve 1/16" deeper into the hole with a hammer blow just before pulling to help un-stick it.

Thomas Beck wrote:i took a standard 3/8 and 1/2 tap with your pipe tool extractor to the granite crags on Saturday and was unsuccessful in extracting the sleeves of Rawl 5 piece 1/2" bolts which had been placed about 5 years ago in a desert environment. Someone has been stealing the hardware for the hangers and chain sets. Couldn't get the taps to take in anything but the blue sleeves. The expansion sleeve is wedged in the hole for sure. Pick tool would not budge it. I could knock the cones down however. Must be I need the spiral bit bottoming taps. I was able to reuse 3 of the holes however with a same length bolt glued in and screwed into the cone. 1/2" x 3 1/2". Overkill for desert granite. Still on the learning curve for these sleeve anchors.

It sounds like you pushed the cone back, didn't take out the sleeves and then glued in a bolt.
If that is the case it may not be safe, at all.

"It sounds like you pushed the cone back, didn't take out the sleeves and then glued in a bolt.
If that is the case it may not be safe, at all."
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Can you explain a bit more and why?

I got out the top sleeve and the blue sleeve. I brushed out and blew out the holes several times. These 1/2" x 3 1/2" placements were vertical on a flat horizontal ledge. Once epoxy was in the hole, I was able to thread the cone and tap it to the bottom of the hole

The Granite is like good quality Joshua Tree quartz monzonite. The bolt threads were run through a die to expose clean metal and the length of the bolt was wire brushed on a grinder. I had the glue nozzle all the way in the hole and turned the bolt to spread the epoxy. I got some small amount of squeeze out.

I agree, I wouldn't do this on a vertical or overhanging placement.

I am new to glue in's...I'm sure you guessed by now... but have been "retroing' studs and button heads for years; replacing with another sleeve bolt.

Greegger, I dinked around with a pick tool and the taps for about an hour. I could sit on the anchor ledge and work on the placements. Couldn't get very far and finally gave up to work on some other placements. Spirals when I can afford them now.

I did rap off another glued station (new holes though) on Sunday and am here to ask more questions...so that's good.

I'll take some pictures next time.

There's a basalt area near me which has a lot of volcanic tuff walls and towers. I like to do some lines there but I'm sure I need glue in's. Though I have a long history of using West Systems epoxy with wood and concrete, I am not so confident gluing into chossy rock. For that I'm thinking I'd use a fixe or climb-tech twisted wire bolt. Am I on track here with the hardware?

So you did leave the bottom sleeve in the hole.
The problem is that now the bolt is glued only partially at the top to the rock and at the bottom to only the sleeve. Further you pushed the cone back so it's no longer wedging against the sleeve.
A 1\2" sleeve should have been easy to remove. Did you tap it before you pushed the cone back? Possible that the sleeve was spinning inside the rock as you tried to tap it.

rocknice2 wrote:So you did leave the bottom sleeve in the hole. The problem is that now the bolt is glued only partially at the top to the rock and at the bottom to only the sleeve. Further you pushed the cone back so it's no longer wedging against the sleeve. A 1\2" sleeve should have been easy to remove. Did you tap it before you pushed the cone back? Possible that the sleeve was spinning inside the rock as you tried to tap it.

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Well I agree with your points. If the placement had been in any other orientation besides shear I wouldn't have done it this way. With a hanger on there is about 85mm of bolt. I know the hole is at least 90mm deep. I am not 100% sure I caught and thread the cone. I was gluing at 50°F which is bottom of acceptable range for this epoxy. The adhesive was slow running and there was a lot of drag. Near as I can guess the expansion cone begins about 40mm down or more in the hole. As I said, I worked on taping it for some time. The expansion sleeve was not spinning. I couldn't move it with my pick tool. I tapped the cone down before trying to tap the expansion sleeve. Was this the wrong thing to do?

To John. The construction industry uses threaded rod as a standard for glue in placements in concrete. I used (in this case) Grade 8 non stainless machine bolts which are not completely threaded. I did wire brush them, ground a small spiral groove about 25mm long above the threads. I was concerned to grind higher thinking I might create a stress riser. I placed one bolt which I was not happy with and pulled and discarded it. This is the photo along with a prepared bolt.

You see the epoxy took well to the metal. I was able to move the glued washer with a few hammer blows. I chipped off a thin glued spot on the shaft. The metal was smooth underneath. I'm guessing the bonding was minimal on smooth metal. The bond on the threads and ground area was chip-able but adhesive remained in the threads. The adhesive was Powers Pure 50+

I wish someone local had a pull testing set up. I appreciate everyone's input as I am learning.

Now I know why I feel better clipping a nut than a bolt. Logically, it doesn't make sense, and yet - it totally makes sense.

edit to add:
You can use this with the c-clamp puller and/or with a 3/8" forged eyenut and funkness device. Funking sleeves doesn't usually work well, but funking cones often does.

Anyone tried the spinner method on SS wedgies? My apologies if already addressed.

M.Hanna

I haven't yet, but I will do some tests in the next couple of weeks and report back.
Since SS is stretchy it will probably be trickier to tell whether the collar is sliding or the bolt shaft is stretching. I think an ideal design would have a spacer that crushes at a known maximum force to indicate when to back off and resume spinning.

Thanks GreggerMan

I'll be playing with this setup as well in the coming weeks.

I made a new version of the C-clamp tool today (AKA 'The Doodad' puller v2.0).
Cutting external 1/2-20 threads is easier than drilling and tapping a 3/8-16 hole down the center.
Matt's Spinner tool can then attach directly to the end of the puller so the same modified coupling nut can be used to both spin and pull a stud bolt. This gets around a problem I've had where a stubborn bolt is rotating freely in the hole but stuck to the spinner tool - the only way to free it is to somehow get needle nosed vice grips on the little bit of bolt between the rock and the front edge of the coupling nut. With the set screw on the side you can pinch the bolt at any useful depth. Switch to pulling without needing to unscrew the spinner tool. Streamlined process.
You will need to upgrade to a 1" square spacer pipe and a 1/2" square nut to index it. I cut fine threads in a coarse threaded square nut which looks a little ugly, but the torsion isn't great enough to strip it (I hope). I may need to special order a 1/2-20 square nut (they aren't common).
Email me if you are making one and have questions.

As far as a force indicator on the ss bolts perhaps a Belleville washer would work. You can get them in prescribed values to flatten the washer from grainger or McMaster carr. Awesome upgrade to the doodad!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle…

Mh

youtube.com/watch?v=EHMXAvN…

M Hanna wrote:Anyone tried the spinner method on SS wedgies? My apologies if already addressed. M.Hanna

I've removed a half dozen or so, though they were of unknown manufacturer. They came out incredibly easy. The sleeves broke in the hole after only a few seconds of spinning and came out with a puller easily. Though this was in schist which is medium-soft. I've pulled a Mammut double-wedge with a hammer and funkness device only! One of the other locals pulled some of these same bolts with the claw of a hammer!!



These may have been Redhead wedge bolts based on the look.

We pulled them because we didn't know what kind of bolt they were and the rest of the cliff got replaced with 12mm glue-ins.

On Thursday last week I made a couple more Doodad bolt extractors for some local Denver climbers and filmed the process. This is the Doodad 2.1 made from slightly better materials. Still costs less than $50 per tool. The steps required to make one are outlined here:
youtube.com/watch?v=ZxQKIYg…

Hey all-

I finally got some time to make a version of the Doodad- Thanks for all the R&D Greg!

A couple things I did differently:

For the spinner, I just cut off an old SDS 1/4" bit short, drilled out a 3/8" coupler nut to fit the shank, and gave it a couple good tack welds

On the puller, I just drilled out the c clamp and inserted a modified 1/2" coupler nut to receive a 1/2 x 13 allthread.

Rather than finding a square nut (30 mile round trip to hardware store), I just tacked some shim plates to a 1/2 coupler nut to provide a good fit to the tube stock

It was easy enough to make a 1/2" to 3/8" adapter for the final connection to anchor. This makes it removeable/replaceable if it gets stripped.I use anti-seize for the main shaft and connection to anchor, this would be particularly important to prevent thread galling in SS bolts.

All in all, not as elegant as the most up to date Doodad, but not bad for just using what I had around. I successfully pulled a couple Hilti Kwikbolts with it in bullet hard granite. My understanding is that these are some of the strongest wedgies available.

Very cool M Hanna.
The final revision of the spinner tool is a version that requires no machining:



I made 60 of them for the ASCA.

only one of the several embedded videos of this thread actually works.....is viewable when the play link is clicked on