Vehicles, buildings, bikes, boats and barbecues all have one thing in common. They are all exposed to the elements. That guarantees two things: rust and mixed metal corrosion. Whether you are servicing, repairing, upgrading, refurbishing or restoring things, some disassembly is always required. All it takes to turn your Saturday morning recreational chore into a two-day knuckle-mashing swear-fest is one immovable bolt. Immediately resort to heat, big levers, sawing, grinding or filing and you often create more problems than you solve.

Heat is the most common piece of Internet wisdom, but has obvious hazards; fire, of course, plus damage to plastics, paint, pipework or wiring. It can also ruin the heat treatment on a fastener, making it brittle and hard to drill. Grinders, saws and files? Sparks and scars. Longer lever? You risk shearing the shaft, leaving an awkward stump. If it breaks off flush with the surface, your simple job just turned into a nightmare of centre finding, delicate drilling, and thread tapping.

There are two other reasons not to jump straight in with nuclear options; you can save time and money. The cheapest bits are the ones you don't have to replace and back-orders can add days or even weeks to the job. If you're restoring an older item, parts may not even be available, except at a reclamation or salvage yard. They have a captive audience, with few options; and we all know what that means... they can charge whatever they want!

The book opens with a proven 10-step process which starts with gentle, low-risk techniques which don’t need any special tools. We escalate aggression with the advantage of all the previous steps. You know those times when the person you hand the jar opens it immediately? Exactly like that. So far nothing I've tackled has needed to go beyond step six…
Even if something goes wrong, or already has, we’ve got you covered with a Plan B for every eventuality.
Head damage for bolts and screws

• Internal drive heads (Allen, Torx, spline, cross, slot, etc.)
• External drive heads (hex, bi-hex, square, etc.)
• Sheared or snapped shafts:
• Simple centre finding.
• Protruding stump extraction.
• Flush stump removal or drilling.

Thread damage from cross-threading or drilling out:

• External (shaft) thread clearing and refurbishment.
• Internal (bore) thread clearing, replacement or resizing.

Strategic Reassembly:

• Anti-seize.
• Anti-corrosion.
• Anti-electrolysis.
• Anti-vibration.

Appendixes on:

• Basic tools with live links.
• Specialist tools with live links.
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) with live links.
• The Six Simple Machines, find your own solutions.