Die Maintenance

I was going over some of my father's dies. I gave some of the corresponding firearms to my brother a couple years ago. Some of them were kind of old and a little sticky, but seem to have cleaned up well enough. A couple questions came up that I'm sure I'm not the first to run into

1. It seems the de capping pins seem to have the little threaded portion that holds it get stuck. I was looking at them and there really isn't a way to get ahold of it - in my mind, without risking damaging the die, since the little piece that screws on is also the expander plug, so - is there a trick to get that to unscrew without damaging it with a pair of plyers? There really isn't anything up the threaded rod to grab ahold of either, but you can put a screw driver in the end, so if there was a way to grab the expander ball and turn it, maybe a rubber pad or something, just curious what people so.

2. For dies that will sit for a while, I've noticed the threads and lock rings seems to get gummed up with old oil, and I was kind of wondering if that is something people actually put oil on or not.

For dies that may or may not get used for a while, basically I've just been cleaning them up like anything else with solvent and patches, and then lightly oiling with gun oil, just to give them a little preservative coating. Is that necessary?

thanks for the input. I guess soaking in a solvent makes sense. now that I think about it, I could put the end with the de capping pin in a vise with wood blocks, and then do the old two nut bit, to get a little leverage. a couple of the dies had stuck lock rings, and as soon as I put a little torque, just a hair more than I could do with my hands, they popped free.

was just uploading some pictures to computer, figured I'd share a pic of cleaning up the dies and the collets and pilots for the case trimmer, shell holders etc...