Screw question

[David Scigliano]

I am putting an entertainment center together, I need to build it, take it apart and stain it then reassemble it. I know that confirmat screws work good for this, but what other screws would work for tghe KD entertainment center? I will be using maple ply, and hard maple.

[Jamie Buxton]

Confirmat screws are generally used on particle board. They have a large diameter and thread design which grabs the particles in particle board.

For your application, I'd use conventional wood screws. You can drive them in, pull them out, and put them back in the same hole. With care, you can do this quite a few times without damaging the wood. When I say "with care", I'm specifically saying that when you reinsert the screw you reuse the threads cut in the wood on the first insertion. To do this, put the screw in the hole. Rotate it backwards like you are unscrewing it, while applying light pressure into the hole. You should feel a little jump forward as the screw finds the entry into the threads in the wood. Then you can screw forward into those threads.

I generally use either of two kinds of wood screw: square-recess (Robertson) screws I get from Mcfely's (www.mcfeeleys.com); or combi-recess deck screws distributed by Phillips, and sold at Home Depot. The combi screw can be driven by either a Robertson tip or a Phillips screwdriver tip. The great thing about the square recess is that the screwdriver tip never slips out of the head.