How about doctoring the countersink bit to a slightly off-angle to create
less surface area contact. Try counterboring the threaded holes a few
thousandths to allow for a little deformation before it jams. How about a
bigger tap drill. Are you alligning the length of the screw with the
magnetic pole?

"Joe" wrote in message
...
We use some decent flat head screws on our units and I've run into a
strange problem. When we tighten them into the aluminum housings, they
hold a galvanized plate in place. After about 10 minutes of being on
there, they are almost impossible to get off.

We have turned the highest quality allen keys we can find into pretzels
and have stripped many using impact and a shorter length. Sometimes we
have success by using a chisel to "spin" the flat head loose but that's
the Neanderthal method I'd like to avoid... Even that fails 50% of the
time. We can't use heat because there is a rubber seal in the aluminum
very close.

The flat head actually grabs onto the galv. plate so well that our
customers (and us!) have to drill them out 8 out of 10 times we need to
remove them...

Anyone know of a super allen key or some other method of removing these
that might work? We know that when we use painted plates, we have less of
a problem and have considered painting the countersink of each flat head
hole, but that's crazy in the big scheme of things...

Thoughts, wisdom and random visits from friends welcome.

Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
http://www.autodrill.com
http://www.multi-spindle-heads.com

V8013

My eBay: http://tinyurl.com/4hpnc