Stuck quill stem

Any recommendations as to a shop to drill out the remnants of a stuck quill stem please ? I’ve obviously tried everything and now trimmed stem to top of steerer ,done so fork is now free and easier to transport but also so at worst I can move on with putting in a new fork etc but owner would still prefer to keep original fork if possible ,scoured the archives but so many shops have changed recently,many thanks in advance ,Stef

Drilling a fork is a bit of a bugger but not too hard.

Easiest way if you have it out of the frame is caustic soda and try not to get it on the paint, which isn’t hard to do. Relatively quick, cheap and easy to do yourself too.

Thanks ,I’ve tried everything mechanical including getting a much longer bolt [before cutting] to bash expander down to no avail ,looking up from below I can see the conical expander has been pulled right into the stem ,i’am struggling to find a long [20+cm’s]metal drill bit at a reasonable price ,I’ll try chemicals next,one of my students has been gifted a single speed bike but both post and stem were stuck ,got post free’d and hoped stem would follow ,thanks

It’s a pain of a job no matter what you do but caustic soda is the easiest.

Toolstation do large drill bits for not too much.

Well done getting the post out.

Many thanks for all the reply’s from the community ,sorry if I’ve not responded personally to them all ,caustic soda method it is then ,I’ll do an update when done ,I fully understand the process now ,never realised quite how much material is physically removed , and also health dangers ,I didn’t go the chemical route because it was hard to believe anything would be better than than trying to shift the expander than bashing a steel bolt screwed in with a mini sledgehammer once the fork was free of the frame but just ended up with a bent bolt and dropouts stuck into a big block of wood

Caustic soda is only going to work if the stem is aluminium, and the steerer tube / forks are steel! Also never hit the stem up from inside the forks as the wedge makes it completely ineffective. If it's steel stem cutting it out might be your best option but its going to be a pain not having anything to grip on to.