Preferred type of screw driver

[Frank Pellow]

There is a poll on the Festool Owners Group on Yahoo about which type of screw driving mechanism is preferred. I thought that would be informative to ask this question of a much larger audience. Thus, this thread.

I have attempted to depict 5 different mechanisms in the attached drawing.

I realize that you may have different preferences for different applications but you are limited to one choice in the poll. So try to pick your overall favourite.

Which of the following screw driving mechanisms do you prefer?

[Lou Morrissette]

Frank,

For me it was a toss-up between phillips and square drive. I have broken more square drive than phillips :eek: so I gave phillips the nod.

Lou

[Matt Meiser]

I tried the McFeely's square drive screws and decided to pretty much switch to them for furniture. I've broken a few Bosch bits from a kit I bought, but not the bits McFeely's sells. I've broken a lot more philips bits.

[Andy London]

There is actually a difference between square drive and Robertson, has to do with the patent. A true Robertson is tapered, somewhat like a morse and taper and will stay in the screw driver whereas a square drive's sides are straight and will fall out if held vertically....In any event a square drive/robertson wins hands down...IMO

[Bob Smalser]

Slots, mostly.

Just try and remove those painted-over square-drive or Phillips 30 years from now. You can't get them perfectly clean easily and you destroy half of them as a result. Slots are easy in comparison.

Also, when one is hopelessly frozen, there's much less meat in any of them but plain old slotted screws for the extractor to get a bite in.

Square-drive if I know they ain't gonna get paint on them...because square drive are by far the fastest to go in.

[JayStPeter]

I chose square. It is what I mostly use for woodworking.

But, if I am driving Stainless, or other soft metals, phillips. I'd rather torque it out than break it. It's funny, because stainless is why I started using square drive. Full circle there.

Those are my two favorites. But like Bob, if it's getting painted, I'll stoop to the lowly slot. Even though I really really really dislike them. OK, so I guess I really don't need to mention them in a thread about my preferred fastener type. But, they are preferred for something :rolleyes:

Jay

[Frank Pellow]

There is actually a difference between square drive and Robertson, has to do with the patent. A true Robertson is tapered, somewhat like a morse and taper and will stay in the screw driver whereas a square drive's sides are straight and will fall out if held vertically....In any event a square drive/robertson wins hands down...IMO
Thanks Andy, I guess that all I have ever used is Robertson because the screws that I use always stay in the screw driver. I knew that there was once a patent on Robertson screws but I thought that the patent had long since expired.

Andy are you sure that the "square drive" screws sold by places such as McFeely's are not true Robertsons.

[Andy London]

Andy are you sure that the "square drive" screws sold by places such as McFeely's are not true Robertsons.

I'm not sure what McFeely's sells or who makes their screws. I think it was two years ago my son had to write an article on a Canadian Inventor so we chose Robertson....an amazing guy. There are different forms of square drive on the market but if you look close at some of them, they do not have the taper. I hadn't thought much about it until I helped the young fellow with the article.

As for the patent, it was sold not all that long ago to an American based company. If you do a search on the history of the Robertson screw, you will find lots of interesting information.

[Jim Becker]

There is actually a difference between square drive and Robertson, has to do with the patent. A true Robertson is tapered, somewhat like a morse and taper and will stay in the screw driver whereas a square drive's sides are straight and will fall out if held vertically....In any event a square drive/robertson wins hands down...IMOAndy, the "square drive" screws (and driver bits) I have been using from McFeeley's for several years now are tapered and have been since I switched to them. Only a few of the cheap, locally-procured driver bits that I mistakenly bought don't "stick like glue" in the screws!

[Kent Cori]

I've pretty much tossed all my non-square drive screws. I only use anything else if it comes with some hardware component or if I simply can't find the right size in a square drive (which isn't very often.)

[Jeff Sudmeier]

I choose square drive. The first time that I used them, I said to my dad that every screw made should be this drive! Now, that said, I hate using square drive screws when hanging drywall, the bit always gets stuck in the screw!! :mad:

[Fred Hubert]

I voted for the square drive, though I prefer the combination head screws that accept either a phillips or square drive bit. For heavy duty driving you can't beat square drive. For speed and convenience it is phillips. I cannot imagine doing a light duty screwing job like drywall without phillips bits and screws. That is just my preference...

~ Fred

[Mike Holbrook]

Well I cheated and read some other posts before I voted.

I like the Square Drives but had some major problems with some very expensive boxes of belted galvanized square drives. I was screwing down a 60' X 30' deck with an early version of the Quick Drive system. It was a nightmare getting any bit to go in those galvanized slots. The bits that would go in tended to wear out PDQ. I am guessing I just hit an early version of screws which did not properly account for the size fluctuation after galvanizing.

I like the Home Depot DeckMate (torque drives I guess) too and have actually used more of them than anything mostly because they are easiest to get reliable screw. I will also put in a good word for the SPAX German screws ( also torques I think). A local vendor was moving and had them on 1/4 sale, I bought all that came close to being usable. The SPAX have serrated edges that help the screw tap a hole. These screws can be used in masonry like Tapcons so I am thinking they should work in hardwood.

I will add that since I switched to torque drive drills the type of screw head has become a minor issue. My 12 V Hitachi will drive almost anything without stipping the head. The only problem is, it is easy to break screws off with it. Once I learned that I could slow the speed way down & still drive the screw that problem mostly faded away.

[mike lucas]

I have never broke a bit, but I have wore dozens of then out. Mostly phillips bits. I would like to see the slot line of bits and fastners to be discontinued, as they are mostly junk! Square drive is the one I picked.

One that must be in the OTHER type would be allen wrench type. This would be my second choice after square drive. Either one of these two could be as good as the other one.

[Frank Pellow]

This is a "dummy" response used to get this thread up to the top in an attempt to get more votes. Right now the vote count is 109.

[Jim Dunn]

Who you calling a dummy?

[Frank Pellow]

Who you calling a dummy?
I guess myself. :) The use of the word "dummy" in places like this is a term in common use by many computer programmers (my old vocation).

[Kelly C. Hanna]

There's nothing better than square drive. All others pale in my book. I especially hate flathead screws. We use a combo headed screw from HD that has a #3 phillips head. It allows the use of a square drive bit. They don't cam out nearly as badly as when using the bits that come in the box. Funny thing is for decking, square drive isn't as popular as you'd think. This to me is lunacy!

[Jim Dunn]

Frank, I'm just kidding:) Dummy is my middle name I think;) At least that's what my wife says.
Jim

[Jim Becker]

Frank, I'm just kidding:) Dummy is my middle name I think;) At least that's what my wife says.
Hmm...I thought she said you never listen to her? Oh, that was MY Dr SWMBO who said that about me...I forgot. Again.

[Jim Dunn]

Only with one ear:)

[Sam Blasco]

I've been using square drives since 1993. I would never go back, but who knows what the future holds. A modified triangular drive could prove interesting.

[Bob Smalser]

There's nothing better than square drive. All others pale in my book. I especially hate flathead screws. We use a combo headed screw from HD that has a #3 phillips head. It allows the use of a square drive bit. They don't cam out nearly as badly as when using the bits that come in the box. Funny thing is for decking, square drive isn't as popular as you'd think. This to me is lunacy!

Until it comes time to remove them after those square slots are full of 30 years of paint or crud.

Then yer gonna be using a screw extractor on every third screw.

[Spence DePauw]

I voted for square drive, but the real answer is whatever fits the screws I have...

Spence :D :D :D

[Mark J Bachler]

aBSoluTe & OraNGe juIcE

[Frank Pellow]

In the hope that it will give rise to a few more votes, I am posting this reminder. Right now, 141 people have voted.

[Frank Pellow]

My thanks to everyone who participated in this poll.

I posted the results on the Fetool Owner Group web site. There were 3 and a half as many votes in the SMC poll than there were in the Festool poll.

Here is a side by side comparison of the results:

_________________________________Saw Mill Creek__Festool Owner Group

Philips____________________________ 20%__________25%

Robertson (square drive)_____________69%__________55%

Pozidrive___________________________1%___________7 %

Torx_______________________________6%__________13%

Slot, Other, and No Preference_________4%__________options not provided

Festool does not (directly) suport Robertson screws with their cordless drills and it is my hope that the SMC poll will add strength to the case for them doing so in the future.

[Christian Aufreiter]

Couldn't respond earlier due to computer problems. Anyway, I don't think that my vote is of much interest for Festool USA. I like PZ and Torx best. Torx are probably even better than PZ but also a tad more expensive as far as I know.

Regards,

Christian

[Dan Mages]

Yee old forged steel screwdriver with a rivited wood handle.

Dan

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/DanMages/P1010175.jpg

[Jim Dunn]

Not me lady I'm gonna blow up the world then get outa here, in responce to Dan's post above.