Steve, I have ran into this before, oh the fun it was. The funny thing about it was the people out on the line (production workers) thought they would fix this problem on their own. What they did was took their little scribe out of their tool box and placed into the barrel and with just a little twist opened the hole. Now, wasn't that smart!!!! When I seen that I just about flipped. So, what I came up with is triming the diode lead just enough to where I could attach another lead (smaller diameter) and hook together. Of course don't forget to solder the attached area. I pretty much followed IPC 610 wire spec (not sure what page). Since the company I was working for was a contract manufacturer I had to get this blessed by the customer, they were pretty pleased. Also, I have seen people file the leads and re tin. Well, I hope this helps Angie Quadrus Manufacturing ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################ ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################