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Hi Doug,
With an eighth-inch to work with, I think slotting it would be my first strategy too. The bolt may have been stressed in tightening, so may not be frozen in the threads worse than what a slot can help with. Just go easy, and back off when it feels like the slot is going to rip out.
On the other hand, I have tried this before without success until heat was brought to bear on the problem. It was my delight to learn the use of beeswax with Mapp gas for this effort, succeeding in avoiding the "easy-out" approach a couple times with exhaust manifold studs and a cat flange. Now there's a birthday candle lurking in my toolkit. Heat it cherry, add the wax, and before the smoke clears be working the fastener left and right.
If you get to the easy-out stage, seriously adhere to vvpete's advice to drill at the center, keep perpendicular, and match the drill and extractor size to the bolt by the extractor's recommendation (research needed in my case). Too large, and the drill will remove too much material such that the extractor will expand the thread diameter. Too small, and the extractor will snap off leaving you with a piece of hardened material in the way of drilling and heli-coil last resort. I cringe each time I use a bolt extractor, hoping my feel of its twist matches my experience of what's necessary to break them. Ugh.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore
Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
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