Honestly, if we're worried about metal shavings, there are probably some ways of dealing with that. Careful probing with a pickup magnet, or lots of canned air (I'd worry about pushing deeper because it's a laptop though.) That's sunburn cream though. If you drop shavings, you might be looking at dissembling more... you never know if that one shard made it to the other side of the enclosure and it's just a matter of when you move the laptop just right to make it short some pins.
Irwin makes toothless channel locks with slip-on rubber grips. Saves my life in my line of work. When you're dealing with outdoor fluid systems you wind up going against a lot of seized brass comp fittings stuck on old work-hardened copper, and stuck locknuts gathering moisture for a decade or more. The flat grips are better than the teeth a lot of times. Of course, these are square and hex nuts, but it still works when they're rounded from the last guy's manhandling. Often the other option is to set the vice grips so tight you can barely close them and let them mar it, like they bite so hard they cut in, which sucks later on. I hate doing that. I'm replacing that part if I have to do that.
The edges of those screws are smooth and the metal is soft. If you grab them with regular toothed pliers, you're almost cutting it by default, sliding what is to them, a blade, along the surface. And turning the pliers flat so the teeth are in a perpendicular grabbing orientation might just make it more aggressive, not to mention the clamping force you may need could just cause slippage that'll take chunks when the pliers fly off the head... and maybe you accidentally poke something before getting control back. Heatpipes right there and all. And then every time you try/fail, it gets harder. If you're skilled with pliers, maybe not as much of an issue, but even then it's taking a chance.
But what about some electrical tape stretched around the teeth? Plant the tips of the pliers square around the screw, pointing straight down so they really compress down on the tape. May be enough to grip that smooth edge and actually turn the screw, rather than tear at the metal. If the teeth are small enough for the edge to fit between them, it should really grip.
I'm thinking about how a jar grabber works. It's just a rubber/silicone sheet. But when squeezed around a smooth jar lid, works pretty well!
Gee whiz, delshay. Don't be so ate up with your own talents.
ROTFL PLEASE don't tag me. I assure you, I don't need anyone to show me how to extract stripped screws. I did my first of many over 50 years ago.
, i own a set of three large,mid and small precision from snapon. i think a few folk are over thinking this a bit , its just a straight forward screw remove.
