Jim, little taps for a long time will get you all the way to the house without beating something to death. I've had to do it on scopes for people, after they have had their turn. Never any damage to anything but someones ego. At work I have had to do the same thing on super precision glass scales capable of measuring distances accurately past 3 digits right of the decimal in metric scale, well into the sub one ten thousandth of an inch accuracy......
EZ outs have royally screwed me (or helped me screw myself quite well) a couple times, spreading the heads on screws where the OD of the head bites into the countersink in addition to the threads. THEN you are in for some fun getting it out without damaging the workpiece.
I spin anywhere from a couple to a couple hundred socket head screws a week, the machinery I work on is almost exclusively built with them. The only thing I have found that I like better than Torx bits on occasion are the EZ-outs with the drill bit in the end, drill down in a reverse rotation and the threaded sleeve bites the head. Sorry but I can't remember the name of them. They work great IF you have room to use them AND you have a drill with enough power to break the screw loose.
I guess I am out on the end of the scale compared to most when it comes to wrenching, I work on ultraprecision assemblies and systems, where .001" is a mile. Sometimes I take it well past where I need to when working on cars or things like that, but at least it is done right.
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one of my little tricks of the trade I need to mail in to a contest sometime!
