Yet Another Tongde M60

[Roaming Gnome]

moot at this point, snapped a screw off in one of the upper hull mounting posts with noithng at all to grab on to, going to have see if I can get a replace, if not it's on a shelf, the upper hull I have is too warped to even think about magnets

[Roaming Gnome]

well it appears no upper turret is available, so I now have a pile of parts until I can figure something out

[RichJohnson]

You have having some bad luck. I cant fathom how a screw snapped off in the plastic mounting post since over-tightening leads to stripping the threads out of the plastic post..
Now you mentioned it was the hull mounting post but then you said you tried to get another turret.
Where did you snap the screw off?

You can try to drill it out but that is not going to go well I guarantee that from someone that has drilled many screws out. It never goes well when they are in a soft material..

I would suggest, if its in a deck to hull post, that you file down two sides of the post as if it were sliced in 4 like a pie. File down the two opposing sides until you can grip the screw with a pair of good sharp needle nose pliers and twist it loose.

Once its out, get some plastruct tubing that fits over the post, bring it up to the height of the two tabs of the sides still in place and make it an inch or two long. Mark the opposite end on the tank post with a line and be exact.
Slip the tube off, cut off the two remaining tabs on the post so its flush. Then slip the tube back down to the mark and glue it in place.
After that, telescope smaller sizes of tubing down inside the first one and cut them flush, slowly closing the hole up and filling it in rebuilding the end of the post. It will probably take 3-4 sizes of tubing, maybe 5. Its gonna cost 15-25 dollars for that many packs of tubing.

[Roaming Gnome]

I meant upper hull/deck, first thing I'm going to try is just cutting as slot in the exposed par of the screw, I have some .5mm cutting wheels coming, if that fails, then I have an idea similar to yours, just less steps and I have the materials.

Pretty sure I tried to use an HK screw, and IIRC the Tongde screws are small, either way it snapped right perfectly flush with the top of the post,

I think I also sent a message to Tongde on Facebook, keyword think.

[Roaming Gnome]

got the screw out, my idea of cutting a slot in the screw may have worked had not all the cut off wheels had a but of wobbly to them so they acted more like a wobble dado head and end up with grove almost as wide as the screw., in reality I lost about an 1/6" of the post, considering the way I have put things back together I can just toss a couple of washers over the screw, I have to eyeball one of the screws into the post to get the front to seat anyway and I don't plan on doing much inside from this point.

I also ordered a stainless steel screw set with 2, 2.3, 2.5 and 3mm in asst. lengths, should have the right size screw for the Tongde which I have now officially lost...

[tank_me]

M2.3 would be a very odd size. I have tons of metric screws, but no M2.3s. Don't think I've ever even seen an M2.3...

[keilau]

M2.3 would be a very odd size. I have tons of metric screws, but no M2.3s. Don't think I've ever even seen an M2.3...

Neither do I ever see a M2.3 screw. It may be custom made and cost a fortune.

[Roaming Gnome]

just going by what the listing says, there's actually multiple sets that list an M2.3, whole set was about $10

[Roaming Gnome]

there's actually multiple kits with M2.3 listed, around $10 so not very expensive

[keilau]

there's actually multiple kits with M2.3 listed, around $10 so not very expensive

Yes, you are right. My mind set is on metric machine screws. There are kits of M2.3 and M2.6 self tapping screws.

[Roaming Gnome]

I was going to come back and mention I'm talking about self tapping threads for clarification, my bad