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Posted: 3/25/2009 7:16:09 AM EDT
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How do I do it? I have tried acetone with no luck. Do I need to use heat, and how much, is a cigarette lighter enough?
I want to remove the loctite so that I can remount with loctite on another rifle. Is it even necessary to remove the old loctite before applying more to the threads? |
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You are talking about hardware that is already disassembled with left over loctite on it, correct?
On automotive hardware, I've removed it with a simple stiff wire brush, sometimes you have to take a sharp object and run it in the grove of the thread to scrape it out. I have re-assembled hardware with dry left over loctite, still has some retaining power, or applying more loctite ontop of the dried left over, pretty much the same retaining power. Arguably, to get the best bond you would have to clean the threads well and apply new loctite, but if its NOT hardware that suffers the conditions that loosens up the bolts all the time, then do your really need 100% retaining power, I haven't had any problem with re-assembling without cleaning up the threads and/or applying new loctite over old, but I only do it for hardware that isn't critical or is NOT exposed to a lot of stress. Of course that is automotive, I don't have much experience with loctite on firearms, I'm hoping it pretty much carries over. Consider you often get new bolts with a drop of dried loctite on them for assembly, yes thats different than left over loctite from bolts taken apart, but do you really need fresh liquid loctite for every application, especially those that don't call for loctite, you simple add it as an extra measure. BTW, in automotive at least, I found the biggest benefit of loctite is it seals the threads and prevents corrosion and seizing. Every undercarriage bolt I ever remove, I slather in blue loctite or anti-sieze if its got a cotter pin or lock washer, a decade later, those bolts came apart easily, while the others that never got the treatment have seized up with corrosion and I often break the bolt trying to remove it. |
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