Holding screw heads
This idea did not come to light when I was carrying out a model engineering-related task, but while I was working on my 1933-vintage BSA car. However the idea should prove useful for any technical situation.
I happened to be working on the back of the instrument panel of said car, lying upside down in a very awkward position. I was trying to insert a grub-screw into its appropriate hole, but could only get one hand to the job. Of course every time I placed the screwdriver in the grub-screw slot and tried to put it into the threaded hole, the screw fell out.
How to keep the grub-screw attached to the screwdriver ? Well under normal conditions I might have used some thick grease to hold everything together, and no doubt
“Every time I placed the screwdriver
in the grub-screw
slot and tried to put it into the threaded hole, the
screw fell out...”
there are screwdriver devices on the market that do such a job.
But I was underneath the dashboard and did not want to extricate myself from that position as it had taken some contortions of my old body to get there.
So what was to hand that I could use - a bit of paper of course ! Take a small strip of paper, fold it in half and place in the slot of the screw or grub-screw or whatever. Then force the screwdriver into the slot, and if the paper strip is of the appropriate thickness the two will hold together to do the said job, as one can see in the photo.
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