A few months ago a broke a #4-40 tap in a heat sink. After a lot of cursing and futile attempts to get it out, I just left it for another day.
I felt compelled a few days ago to go after it again. This time I came across an article on the use of alum powder to dissolve the ferrous metal (tap) from the aluminum without affecting the aluminum. Long story short, I got some potassium alum powder, set up a double boiler with a Pyrex container and six hours later and a little baby sitting, the tap was gone and I was able to save the threads and all. Kind of amazing.
You can see the small bubbles coming from where the tap was. Note that I don't remember any chemistry, so I'm hoping this was safe.
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