How to Rethread a Stripped Screw on a Mouse
Most mods on your mouse ranging from simple to advanced will require you to open it up to access the internal components. While doing so is quite simple you might run into some troubles if you cross-thread and strip your screws that hold the shell and the base of the mouse together.
With a free-spinning screw, you can’t properly attach the base to the shell which can lead to mushy clicks, an uneven base, and a wobbly mouse. Using a slightly bigger screw might work in some cases, but if you are dealing with tiny screws and a minimal amount of plastic on the base/shell you need to get creative.
A Quick Fix
The easiest way I have found that allows you to rethread tiny screws used in modern mice without destroying the shell and base is to use superglue and create a completely new thread for the screw that has issues.
This only requires a couple of minutes of work and can fix the issue at hand quickly.
- Take the mouse apart and get some superglue
- Fill the cross-threaded hole with glue and let it dry
- Take the screw that was stripped and slowly tighten it in place creating a fresh thread it can use
- Assemble the mouse again making sure to use the same screws for each spot avoiding cross-threading again
How to Avoid Stripped Screws on Mice
To keep the weight down gaming mice have started using exponentially smaller screws that can be easily stripped or rounded. There are however a couple of things you can do to make sure you never deal with any of these issues even while opening your mouse often for mods.
- Don’t over tighten your screws – if you need to apply pressure to tighten the screw you are overdoing it
- Remember which screw goes where to avoid cross-threading (example above)
- Before you start tightening the screw spin it in the opposite direction a couple of times until it pops into place – this way you know the screw will follow the previous thread correctly avoiding any cross-threading issues