Broken screw in saxony spinning wheel help

I have a broken screw that is in my wheel and the hole in the wheel looks stripped inside as well. It is a secondhand wheel that has lasted me a few years, but hadn’t been the same since our move.

It is a handmade wheel and I have no way to contact the man who made it (I believe he passed away as well). How can I get the broken piece of screw out of the wheel and insert another through stripped wood, without breaking anything?

It is the screw that holds the wheel to the crank(?). I had no idea why it was making noise when I spun recently and then the top 3/4 or so of the screw fell out.

Any help is appreciated. I don’t have much money, so I was hoping my husband or I could fix it.

Thank you!

If the screw is actually in wood and you can remove the wheel from the axle a regular drill bit might screw the remaining portion out. Are you sure it is not a set screw? sometimes two set screws are used, one securing the wheel to axle and the secondary one locking the first set screw in place.

Robert Ray wrote:If the screw is actually in wood and you can remove the wheel from the axle a regular drill bit might screw the remaining portion out. Are you sure it is not a set screw? sometimes two set screws are used, one securing the wheel to axle and the secondary one locking the first set screw in place.

I can’t remove the wheel from the axel. Husband got the crank fixed a year or two ago by a welder and then screwed the wheel back to the axel. I’ll try to see what I can do. Thank you for the information!

If part of the screw is still in there, does it still work?  If so, then probably don't need to fix anything.

More often, wheel makers these days use a tension or spring pin as screws and nails can work loose or break (they aren't designed for that style of stress).

spring pin

You obviously don't want to damage the wheel hub. If you can't get the wheel off, then you will probably have to use a left-hand drill bit. If it were me, to center the drill bit I'd use a piece of tubing that would not only center the bit in the larger hole so you hit the center of the screw but protect it from misalignment. If you don't have tubing of the correct size tape around the bit will work.
Does the screw go all the way through the axle? If it does perhaps the threads are in the axle and what appears to be stripped threads in the wood are just register marks from the screw's threads. If you look at R. Ranson's link picture it is probably a through hole which makes more sense mechanically, that axle being threaded being far stronger than a threaded wooden hub.

R and Robert both have good ideas.
You say that the top part of the screw fell out, could you post a picture of the screw fragment? We could tell quite a bit from seeing it (type of screw, it's material, how it broke?)