I kinda miss a few opinions on the topic of “screw taste” here. 🥲
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I like torx
Torx is definitely the best, it holds the screwdriver the best and a torx screwdriver also works to remove other screws with stripped heads
Look at any comparison that includes robertson and it wins every time, and if the reviewer is american they’re surprised every time. Canadian fastener aisles are 95% robertson 2% torx and 3% hex because lag bolts and such. Only screws included in other hardware are anything other than those
I’m naively assuming that the most relevant features are surface area, corner angle, and taper, is that right? And what I want in a drive is obviously that it won’t strip, but also that it won’t cam out/slip. Supposedly camming out is a “feature” to prevent something or other, but I exclusively use hand tools so it’s mostly just an annoyance really. What I don’t know is, how do those 3 features affect strippage and slippage? What makes Robertson better at that?
The surface area of engagement on robertson is one of, if not the highest. The bit will bind on the the tapered sides before it touches the bottom of the hole in the screw, so you always get full engagement and 0 rotational slop (provided your bit and screw are actually in line with each other.) Torx more often than not has some rotational slop between the two, and phillips almost always does. Another nice thing about robertson specifically for hand tools is the sizes have standardized colour coding, so you grab the green handled screwdriver for #1, red for #2 and black for #3. It’s only brands that care more about the looks of their products than usability that don’t have at least a coloured ring on the handle of their drivers. I’m pretty sure torx has colour coding, but it’s nowhere near as common, especially seeing as there are so many sizes.
Well I’m definitely sold, that sounds awesome!
May i recommend: torx plus
Hey, Robertsons are great ok
Reliable, color-coded, and Canadian!
What kind of maniac has one of those in his pockets at all times?
It’s canadian, eh. Just don’t mind the maple syrup we also keep in there, along side, loose
That’s Canadian Loc-Tite, eh?
Same price too
You know it
Hex is amazing, actually. Perfect for mechanical systems that need precision adjustments and/or precision tightening torque. The driver grips solid and is really hard to accidentally strip.
Slotted / flat head is a joke and I can’t take you seriously if you claim it deserves a top spot in any ranking.
Phillips is great for layman end user applications that need protection from over-torque, as it’s designed to reject a driver when torqued out. But it’s the wrong head to use in like 90% of the places you encounter it.
My only issue with hex is that the angles between the sides are too flat and easy to round off, especially if the screw is small or cheaply made (soft steel or aluminium). Speaking from experience, if the screw head is 3mm across or smaller, Torx or JIS (which is still better than Phillips) are more reliable.
Hex could have been great, but along came the Americans with their units, and since hex was in mm, then they had to make their own hex in fractions of inches. I’m involved in archery, where you meet both without warning. Almost as annoying as having ISO, UNC and UNF threads.
you take that back about the square drive and pin that shit on the phillips head
context: the square drive was designed as a universal open standard for affixing things to other things. the phillips head was designed as a cheap alternative to torque wrenches
Phillips strips because it was designed to. Literally. And I fucking hate it.
Slotted is a bitch unless you have the motor skills of a neurosurgeon.
All tamper screws are offensive to me on a religious/spiritual level.
It wasn’t designed to strip when overtorqued. It’s a myth with no evidence. The original patent says nothing about it (I’ve read the whole patent), and later patents list it as post-hoc justification for a design fault.
Really? We were actually taught this in college but come to think of it I never did read the fucking patent.
Look, what’s important is we all seamlessly transition to Robertson screws….
(Honestly I’m convinced it’s just spite for Canada that we haven’t already)
Add it to the list of reasons to hate Henry Ford. When he needed a new screw standard to replace slotted screws in his factories, he went to Robertson first, but he wasn’t willing to sell production rights to Ford. His second choice, Phillips, took the offer. Phillips and similar cruciform screw heads (Pozidriv and JIS, both of which are superior to Phillips) proliferated globally because of this, and it would take a massive shift in the industry today to fully transition to Robertson or Torx.
Fyi Robertson(square) and slotted are the “tasty” screws.
Philips is a corporate design built to strip.
Your mum is built to strip
Now I wanna see op’s mom.
Square and Robertson are 2 different types. The Robertson screws have a slight taper to the socket you can see if you look. Square drive screws are NOT tapered.
There are also 2 different types of common cross slotted screws. One is Philips that is actually meant to be a ‘one and done’ install. It was meant to cam out to prevent over torquing when assembling something back in the day. Don’t blame the screwhead for your poor choice in application or you cheaping out on the driver to install them because you bought some crappy dollar store driver.
And then there the VERY similar looking JIS, (Japanese Industrial Standard) screws that require their own special driver. If you get Philips and JIS screws mixed up, you WILL have a very bad day…
My favorite flavor is the hex socket head screws. A nearly complete set of wrenches will fit in you pocket. Either fold up or ball end L style.
It’s not square, it’s ROBERTSON!!! A gift from Canadians to the world, and everyone else decides that, no. Easily strippable screw heads are better…
Both Phillips and slot screws are fucking awful.
Yeah flat heads are terrible. They are always the reason if I get injured by my screwdriver.
Firstly, theres no geometry preventing the bit from slipping out. Secondly, greatly exacerbating the first, you need to press hard to prevent the bit from camming out, which increases the risk of it slipping out.
Both problems combined causes the bit to slip out with very high force. If you happen to be holding the workpiece, you can injure yourself real bad.
I fucking hate flatheads.
Flat heads exist because they were the only thing we could make for a long time.
Philips was made to strip heads.
Hexagon the the true master head. No camming out and If it starts to strip, you can smack it with hammer to return it to a working shape.
IMO the only two criteria that matter are:
- Is the screw going to slip out while I’m screwing it in or out.
- Do I have a screwdriver or screwdriver tip for that screw when I need it.
Criterion 1 eliminates the flat head and Philips points. They’re terrible because they slip out. The flat head not only slips out, it slips out in the most dangerous ways.
But, criterion 2 eliminates most of the other designs. Even if you’re Canadian, which means you do have a Robertson screw driver, you might not have the right Robertson bit. Unlike with Philips or slot, the size of the bit really matters.
Ikea does a great job of handling this situation because they mostly use hex screws and bolts (which are great), but they also supply the required driver with the parts (which is necessary because many people don’t have a tool to tighten hex bolts).
Phillips and slotted should be illegal. Torx is far superior in every way.
Torx is the vastly superior option and Robertson drive are also really good
it’s missing the brand new BMWTM screw
Those just taste like boot leather
Robertson and hex are fine. In the far reaches of the world those can be quite common.
Why is this flamebait being up voted?
No mention of Oval drive? As much as I normally hate security fasteners, I love those for being hilarious. At first glance it appears roughly circular, you’d be like “well this is a nail, or a rivet or something”. But no, actually you can unscrew it!
I have never seen this. I love it! It’s so simple! Why are these not everywhere?!
Right?! And yet AFAIK there is exactly one (now defunct) company who ever used them. I guess it’s time to be the change we want to see in the world 😈
Phillips exists to auto center and prevent over tightening. This auto centers but doesn’t prevent overtighteninf so you can theoretically torque the head right off. Otherwise it’s great.
and prevent over tightening
That’s a funny way of saying “it’s designed to strip out and become unusable as easily as possible”, but to each their own.
Oh it absolutly does that, which is why I hate it, but it was intended to so exactly that for a different reason.
Yeah, but unfortunately it has to protrude from the surface because the bit grabs the outside, which means you can also grab it with pliers. Not the best feature for a “security” fastener.
Omg you’re right!! I didn’t think about that at all… It’d be difficult but certainly doable.
You could reverse it so the socket is on the screw instead, but then it might be slightly more obvious that it is a screw. Also nobody makes those, to my knowledge.
Kinda surprised this wasn’t a gender comic. I half expected the corpo propaganda label to be mental illness lol
And torx is the tastiest screw, fight me
I won’t fight you brother, I will join you, torx is the best screw, doesn’t strip, Philips is literally built to slip under pressure
