Tripod thread advice

[scottduffy]

Guy's i have one of my tripod legs slowly reducing in height and when i tried to tighten the thread it seems the allan key is threaded. Any ideas how i could remove the bolt or even tighten it?

 

[Stegosaurus]

Aaaaand that sums up why I hate Allen bolts! Possibly the simplest trick is to get a bit of rubber sheet and use over the end of the Allen key to get a grip. Plenty of other possibilities if that doesn't work.

 

[GreenNinja67]

You may have to drill it out and re-tap with a larger allen bolt?

Best of luck.

 

[Stegosaurus]

Looking again, I may have misunderstood your post. Is it a captive bolt that is just spinning?

 

[andrewc]

Not quite understanding you.

If the allen key has rounded off and the allen key no longer grips, or the screw is cross threaded.

If its the former you could possibly cut a slot in it for a screwdriver,or drill the off the bolt, and then extract the remaining stud from the other side. It usually happens when people use the wrong size tool - eg a metric allen key when in fact an imperial one was the correct size.

If its cross threaded you may need to either retap the thread, or resize the fasteners depending on how mangled up it is.

 

[scottduffy]

Looking again, I may have misunderstood your post. Is it a captive bolt that is just spinning?

I'll check again tomorrow. I remember tightening them now and again over the years with a little tool that was provided but today when i tried it just spun round the head. I'll have a wee look tomorrow as it's out in the studio and see what i can do. Luckily i switched from Canon to Fuji a while ago so my gear is nice and light. No way it would have held my dslr.