Use steel screws-DOH!

[Jerry Ingraham]

Having watched Bill Grumbine's dvd at leats a dozen times, I have not used drywall screws to mount my blanks, so far so good. I have been using wood screws purchased at the big box store-until yesterday. Mounted up an apple wood blank and turned the bottom, removed it to flip around and remount in the four jaw chuck when I discovered that all four screws had snapped! How this thing stayed on the lathe is beyond me! So, I spent the next fifteen minutes carefully turning down to the screw depth, cut in on both sides of them, then with some chisel work and my hi-tech screw extractors:D , I got 'em out. For the rest of the blanks was rough turning, I used some Kreg pocket hole screws, which seemed to work well. What brand of screws do you all use? Here are some pics.

[Dennis Peacock]

Jerry,

Been there and done that more times that I care to count.!!!!:o
The Borg screws are soft metal and are actually worse than standard drywall screws. The Kreg screws are fine, but you really need to use a #10 or #12 screw for a more twist resistant bite between the lathe and the wood. What I have tried and I like to use are stainless steel screws that are #12 by 1-1/2". Seems to work pretty well for me....digging out screws sure does eat up ones time in the shop. :rolleyes: :D

[Raymond Overman]

That doesn't work very well and it's such a pain to dig the darn things out when you make that mistake. An investment in a few steel screws is well worth the money as opposed to the aggravation.

Don't ask me how I know these things.

Good luck.

[Ted Calver]

Jerry, I think you dodged a bullet on that one! I'm with Dennis on the stainless but use some heavier hex head self drilling screws I found at Lowes. Better safe than sorry when you've got a big irregular chunk of green wood spinning near your body!

[Jim Becker]

I use the same square drive screws I use for cabinetry in the RARE occurrence that I mount a turning blank with them. And most of the time, the screws are in a waste block...

Oh, and stainless can sometimes be brittle depending on the "type".

[Reed Gray]

I use #8 1 1/4 galvenized decking screws. Some people set the torque to the highest settings on their screw guns. The only time I have had screws break has been when I had the torque set too high. You only need enough to make it tight, just like nuts and bolts, if you tighten too much, you can strip them. One way to make sure it is tight is to hit each screw once more after all have been set. I now use a forstner bit to make a recess in the top, and use the chuck so I don't have to mess with a faceplate.
robo hippy