There is one screw on this chart that I have a mortal hatred for. Just one. That being the fat Phillips (called “Phillips/square” on this chart meme thing).
I have no idea why, but some companies can’t resist the sadistic urge to put tiny versions of these fuckers on equipment that should just use a torque or Phillips screw head. But no, they want you to truly suffer. Because they don’t stop there: they make the fragile little fuckers out of NICKEL. Which means they are extra malleable and prone to strip if you so much as look at them the wrong way. So imagine you need to replace a hard drive on a RAID-type storage pool that’s already down two spares and you can’t fucking get the drive out of it’s sled because the vendor not only hired a bodybuilder to tighten the screws, but simultaneously chose the worst possible metal just for giggles and chose the screw head that they no body will have the proper bit for and will inevitably use a normal phillips on until it strips.
I now have a ritual procedure of putting every drive that gets replaced in the coldest cold aisle in the datacenter for at least 5 minutes just to make these fucking screws less likely to ruin my day.
Fuck whoever invented the fat phillips, even the lowest ring of hell is too good for them.
But no, they want you to truly suffer.
It’s called Planned Obsolescence, sweatie. Now go out and buy a new device.
Ya. Just those guys, and anybody who eats turtles. Keep the psychos out of the nice parts of hell.
Let me introduce a fresh hell: we call them Apex screws.
No take it back
Phillips are for boring fuckin normies who can’t chooch
Speaking of chooch, anyone know what’s up with AvE?
Had to unsub and strike him from my feed when he started cheering for the “freedom convoy” donkeys a while back. Revealed himself to be a hopelessly stupid and ignorant bumblefuck in my book. Fuck him.
Still a nutter, as far as I know.
He hasn’t put out a new video in over a month
In one of his last video he was asking for monies for some new project. I’d gather he’s working on that.
I like some of the stuff he does, but his rants during covid made me take a step back. If he stays away from the political garbage, I can still tolerate him, but not enough to give him any money.
I lost interest in what he had to say after he came out in support of the convoy protests.
He always was on about ‘having a laugh in the shop’ and then broke the Cardinal rule, never talk religion or politics at work.
Yup. Not what I come to YouTube for at all.
Yeah, that was a sad spiral to watch.
Aside from going out of his mind during covid?
Not unlike WranglerStar.
Phew… and what a dive that was. What a waste of a channel. I don’t mind the AvE stuff nearly as much as the insufferable persecution complex of WS though.
I kinda fell out when he started getting Grumpy, but god damn the man could turn a phrase. I miss the shitty tool teardowns
Yeah, that was his peak. The tool teardowns were interesting.
The Torque Test channel is kinda close in a similar vein, but not quite the same.
I’ll have to check them out. If you like teardowns and deep dives on random consumer product engineering, I’d recommend Technology Connections. Dude puts out quality
Philips screws are awful. They strip if you look at them wrong. Flatheads should only be used on thumbscrews just in case you need a little extra torque from a screwdriver.
Torx and Hex are excellent.
The image feels like it should be posted in c/unpopularopinions
Torx gang unite.
We had our 20 y/o deck repaired and stained last year. I was chatting with the overseer about what he was going to do and the topic of screws came up; he said he was going to use Torx, and only ever used Torx anymore - I just about cheered.
I’d been losing hope in humanity lately, but little signs of sanity like this, professionals finally getting rid of the hell-bits that are Phillips heads, lifts my heart and gives me hope.
I work at a big box hardware store, and I can confirm that almost all deck and structural screws are moving to torx. (much to the older generations dismay)
That’s what a worker at my local Ace store said: they were slowly transitioning to Torx.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a philips or slotted deck screw. I have and have purchased many boxes of these things and they’ve always been nearly 100% Robertson. Is this a US thing?
I’ve heard that was more of a European thing, but the only two serious contenders are Pozidriv vs Torx for screws (and hex vs Allen for bolts).
I just checked my local hardware store’s website, and out of the 176 kinds of 4/4.5mm screw boxes in their inventory, 74 are Torx, 55 are Pozidriv, and 38 are Phillips (ew).
Either Torx or Pozidriv is fine when used properly, however most DIYers don’t understand the difference between PZ and PH and end up stripping their heads. Also it’s much harder to use the wrong-sized bit with Torx than PZ.
So yeah, Torx wins in just about every category and other heads only get manufactured to appease old people and penny-pinchers.
These days, all but the cheapest outdoor-grade screws in the US are torx, generally with a bit thrown into the box that, while cheap, should work fine for a few boxes’ worth.
The ones with bumps in the middle can go fuck themselves
Square is nice too but square/Phillips is a good damn lie. Because the Philips side of it doesn’t work well enough so it is still just a square but with extra slots
Flatheads should only be used on thumbscrews just in case you need a little extra torque from a screwdriver.
The only other legitimate use I’ve seen for flatheads is on wooden boats, where you’ll be gooping the head up with tar for waterproofing. Since you’ll eventually have to scrape it back off again to get to the fastener, you want a simple geometry that’s easy to clean.
I work on electronics and woodworking and Phillips are the utter worst of both of them. The thread lock in computers makes them easy to strip when unscrewing. The resistance of driving them into wood makes them guaranteed to strip when screwing. Fuck them.
The big issue I see with people driving Phillips screws is that they don’t use a large enough driver size. Computer screws for example are Phillips #2 and I’ve never had an issue with them stripping.
I use the correct driver, I’ll go through my kit to find the best fitting bit. It simply comes down to the fact they are designed to strip to avoid “catastrophic failure”. Plus the fact that companies use intentionally cheap, soft screws, to make repair and service harder. Cough cough zinc screws on a $10,000 iMac (steel screws would have cost 25 cents for 10, zinc like 5 cents for 10, fucking ridiculous).
I always figured it was intentional but for the other reason: screws soft enough that overtightening can’t damage/crack the multi-thousand dollar components, the screw head cores out first.
That’s great, but then you can’t get your multi-thousand dollar component unscrewed anyway so what was the point?
I read that the thing about them being designed to strip to prevent worse failure is just a myth. Or at least they weren’t originally designed to. It said that the original patent never contained any feature for that. Wouldn’t surprise me though if modern companies do use screws designed to strip to prevent disassembly/repair.
I think originally the screws would cause the driver to cam out and stop driving if a certain amount of force is applied but the screws are so soft and cheap that the harder driver damages the screw head when it cams out.
Maybe I’m just being lucky but I’ve never experienced screws stripping anymore since I’ve started getting better tools for myself.
And in woodworking it can also help to pre-drill a hole using your smallest drill, before screwing a screw in. This also prevents the wood from cracking. I’ve also seen wood screws that have some lubrication pre-applied.
The problem is, when working with electronics, you can have a great screwdriver but it won’t help if the screws in the device are very cheap (and probably partially stripped already from someone opening it previously).
I’ll be honest that I’ve never really experienced problems like that before. I’ve had cheap screws and partially stripped screws. But so far I’ve always been able to open them with the right screwdriver.
But I believe you when you say you did and maybe you have a lot more experience than I do so I’ll respect your opinion.
I haven’t had any completely fail yet, but I’ve seen some come worryingly close. I don’t really have all that much experience, but from what I’ve seen it just doesn’t seem like the most reliable design.
I swear I’ve had stuff with stripped screws right from the store.
I feel like spanner would be the best for not having shit getting stripped. But that’s just looking at this diagram; never seen them IRL.
They’re mostly just used for tamper-proof screws for things like bathroom stalls so people can’t take them apart as a “prank” or whatever. The screw driver bits tend to break easily, which is usually worse than the screw stripping.
Hexagons are the bestagons
Square (Robertson) drives are actually great too. Better than Hex/Allen, but Torx is the most reliable, and the most German. Phillips can take a long walk off a short pier.
I do wish Robertson heads were more common. They’re almost as tough as torx, but tapered to stick on the tip of the tool, which is so convenient.
I don’t see how square/triangle worldbt be ideal. They don’t look like they’d strip nearly as bad
World’bt
I believe it’s *worldb’t. Short for world butt.
Fuck this. Torx, Hex, square drive are all positive engagement. Phillips is literally designed to cam out. Slotted is just the first head type to have existed because of how easy it is to make, but is far inferior to every other type.
A good square bit for my impact is a lifesaver as an electrician. Pretty much every conduit fitting set screw can take flat, Philips, or square. When you’re reaching out one-handed from the top of a ladder, you really don’t want to cam out all the time.
Is it just a Canadian thing to call the square head a Robertson?
Flat head screws are necessary when at a very small scale like in watchmaking.
nah torx and hex are great
Torx, yes, hex, no.
what’s wrong with hex
Tbh 99% of the hate for hex is probably because Allen keys exist, and are included with everything. Those things are just pure hell. Hex is fine if you have proper drivers for it, but a lot of people don’t.
Note: Speaking as someone that lives in America, I’m sure the rest of the world has already solved this.
Hex is fucking stupid.
I’m American and even i can agree Robertson are the goat.
Phillips and flat suck. Not enough surface area on Phillips, resulting in stripped screws. And getting centered on flat sucks.
Robertson drive, just pop your driver in and it’s self centering, lots of surface contact to drive, and lots of meat on the head to prevent stripping. Anything more than 4 edges is unnecessary.
You are now an honary Canadian.
Flatheads are awful and you know it.
Flatheads are good for a few specific applications that require the head to have flat contact with the surface but not be tall enough to be something else like a hex or torx, but needing a lot of torque. They suck for everything else.
Specific applications like… prying, poking, scraping, and chiseling.
Also handy on horrible cheap raised hex bolts when they get stripped. Dremel a slot and you’re done.
Torx and PZ ftw.
Also, I’d like to apologise to the future owner of my house for making several constructions using both in no particular order.
I’m a slotted screw HATER
Everything electrical uses them and it’s a nightmare keeping the screwdriver aligned properly to try and take them out at a good speed
My favorite would be square drive but they always seem to make those out of recycled ham sandwiches or something
How is the one that conveniently includes both types of slot not the standard for all screws? I’m sure there’s an actual reason for it, but I’d prefer to remain incensed.
It probably costs like 2% more than one or the other to manufacture and a lot of choices involve penny pinching.
All IKEA furniture uses Pozidriv (no “e”, it’s a trademark). Not going to say if that’s good or bad, but operating a Pozidriv with a Phillips is always going to be terrible.
There’s a distinct lack of love for pozidrive here. It’s like Phillips but without being shit.
I agree. The vast majority of people don’t know the difference, and have never used a pozidriv driver with a pozidriv screw. It is a vast improvement imo.
I worked for an engineering company that used them almost exclusively and now I won’t shut the fuck up about pozidriv l. everyone thinks I’m insane
Don’t think I’ve ever seen one before.
