How To Remove Painted Screws

How to remove heavily painted screws without stripping them? This is something I’ve been asked A LOT in my Instagram DMs over the years, so I thought I’d make a quick post to share how we deal with this and some tips we have if you ever need to attempt this job.

Step 1 – Remove Paint from Around The Screw

The first thing you want to do is chip away as much paint as you can from the area around the screw and the screw head. We use a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer for this. Hold your screwdriver at an angle against the painted area and tap gently on the base of the screwdriver with a hammer to gently chip away the layers of paint.

Step 2 – Score Around the Screw Head

Next, you’ll want to score around the perimeter of the actual head of the screw. This will effectively ‘break’ the seal from the layers of paint. You may find a knife best suited for this job, but sometimes a flat-head screwdriver works too.

Step 3 – Score the Slot on the Screw Head

For this step, we want to remove the paint inside the slot of the screw head. This is important so that our screwdriver can fit properly onto the screw and get a firm grip. To do this, again use a knife or flat head screwdriver to gently scrape or chip away the paint. You don’t want to damage the slot, so don’t be too aggressive with your scraping or paint removing methods!

Step 4 – Apply Pressure and Unscrew with a Hand Tool

This final part is the most difficult, however, for the best result, we highly recommend picking your BEST fitting hand screwdriver for the job. The one you’re holding in your hand right now might fit, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best fitting screwdriver for this job. Check your stash and find the one with the most perfect fit – it really does make a huge difference!

We also don’t recommend using power tools for this kind of job (electric screwdriver or drill) as you will have more control with a hand tool and therefore, you’re less likely to strip the screw.

Once you’ve selected your best tool, press firmly into the screw and apply lots of pressure, and slowly turn your screwdriver to unscrew.

This method works for us 95% of the time, but sometimes, particularly old flat-head screws can have a tendency to strip In this scenario, you can either use a screw extractor (designed for stripped screws) or you can drill the screw out. If you don’t care about the item the screw is in, you can also just use brute force and some leverage with a crowbar to get it out, however, you will most likely damage whatever you’re working on.

We also recomment not trying to attempt to remove a painted screw without trying this method first. A stripped screw is always so much more work to get out and in our experience, painted screws very rarely remove easily enough NOT to need this method. Whenever we’re faced with a painted screw, we use this method BEFORE attempting to remove the screw. Don’t risk it!

So I hope this was helpful! If you have any questions or tips of your own to add, please leave a comment below.

Otherwise, Happy DIYing!