I recently tightened a Black Diamond express screw with my ice tool into the rock. The teeth are all bent in and damaged... is there any way to reclaim/sharpen the screw?

-- Martin Armitage (martin.armitage@chel.com), April 14, 2001

Answers

Wow. You must have really been turning that sucker in hard to bend the teeth! I've had good luck with BD screws in terms of them staying sharp with minimal filing. You should be able to get them sharp again with some work: use a vise and clamp the screw (protected with some padding or cloth). Then go bannanas with a good file. You may have to do some reshaping, but as long as the finished product is sharp and free from burs it should work fine. A dremmel tool might save you some time but beware of overheating the metal which would cause it to lose it's "temper" (and it's ability to hold an

-- bob steed (bobsteed@hotmail.com), April 22, 2001.