Boy, oh boy, I hope someone can help me out with this one:

I'm attaching the brass stem bands to my stripper Osprey canoe. I drilled and countersunk the holes in the bands. I started drilling holes in the stems for the screws, a few at a time, as I bent the stem band around the stem. I was screwing the stem band in place with STEEL screws to make threads for the brass screws I will use in the final installation when one of the STEEL screws broke off. The broken end of the screw is now about 1/8" to 3/16" below the surface of the stem.

Does anyone know of a "simple" way to extract the broken piece? Barring that, here is what I see as my options:

1. Get one of those little hole-saw-like deals that are made for cutting around broken screws and try to extract it that way, then fill the hole with epoxy/filler, redrill the hole in the same place and proceed.

2. Don't bother extracting the scew. Fill the hole with epoxy/filler. Buy more stem band material and drill so that the new hole falls in a slightly different location. Unfortunately, this will delay the launch, since I have to mail order the stem band mat'l.

3. Don't bother extracting the scew. Fill the hole with epoxy/filler. Fill the countersunk hole in the stem band with silver solder (I have some experience with this, and when finished the solder looks a lot like brass). Drill a new hole in the brass band in a slightly different location and proceed.

Any suggestions are welcome. (And here I though I was going to have this baby in the water this weekend!)

Ken Sarkozy