Now it's time to turn it into a flathead screw with a dremel!
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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
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i love how the head in the before picture is ALREADY stripped
Stripped for Your pleasure!
And this is why I buy torx acres for anything I’m building myself. Unfortunately most premade things I buy have this crappy screw type.
The screws included with some items are such pot metal rubbish that they practically strip themselves out. I bought a few assorted packs of hex head cap screws and torx head wood screws so I can replace the included screws when they actually matter.
If it makes you feel any better, the Phillips head was designed specifically to strip out so assembly line workers wouldn't over-torque them. It is stupid that they are the default in so many things when we have things like torx that are infinitely better.
From Wikipedia:
There has long been a popular belief that this was a deliberate feature of the design, to assemble aluminium aircraft without overtightening the fasteners. There is no good evidence for this suggestion, and the property is not mentioned in the original patents.
Huh...well guess I was wrong. Thanks for the info!
Acknowledging own error and thanking the counterparty for pointing it out with no sign of spite? Fucking witchcraft! How do I acquire this power?
Well, when you're wrong a lot you get plenty of practice.
I mean you just gotta try it I guess. You know what's more fun that being right? Learning something and then being right.
If you like Philips aside from that feature (being self-centering is nice sometimes), JIS the Japanese industrial standard is basically the same design but its not intended to cam out, stripping the fastner
To my understanding you can safely use a JIS bit with a Philips fastner to reduce likelihood you strip it. But you ideally shouldn't use a Philips bit to turn a JIS screw. You can identify a JIS fastner by a little dimple in the corner by the plus shaped indentation


Phillips is bad enough to start with, but then they started making Pozidriv, which looks almost identical but isn't actually compatible - making it even more likely to tear out.
I wonder why Canada seems to be the only country in the world that understands Robertson screw head supremacy?
There's a lot of history around the Robertson and Philips screw heads back when assembly lines were becoming a thing.
tldr: licensing is why Robertson didn't spread to the US.
Robertsons are the Pinnacle screwhead. Torx and hex are also acceptable
Robertson wanted to be paid for his good design. Henry Ford didn't want to pay, even if it was a tiny amount.
Ford was willing to use an inferior screw design that could cause production issues rather than pay a license to use the superior design. And, even though the patent expired a long time ago, these decisions have momentum.
I would bet that Torx is more popular than Robertson even though it's a much newer design. Is it a better design? To me, Robertson seems to have the edge when it comes to simplicity, but Torx could be better for industrial applications because multiple lobes that have a surface perpendicular to the direction of torque probably gives it more control. Also, thanks to Ikea, I'd bet that hex-head bolts are incredibly common. They share most of the benefits of Robertson. I suspect they're a little less efficient though because the closer you are to a circle shape, the less the faces of the screwdriver tip align with the direction of torque. I wonder if there are advantages of hex over square, since you see hex so much more often.
Don't feel bad, it's the PH design who's at fault. For some reason, someone decided PH should have tapered flanks, so that the bit has a constant tendency to slip out of the screw unless you push the bit into it with absurd amounts of force.
- They're not a great design
- Screws are made as cheaply as possible
- People assume their drivers last forever. Just a tiny bit of tip damage and they're grind up any screws.
- Philips in impact drivers is a sin.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure phillips head originated for use in screwable rivets and large screws on automobiles where it was implied that the screw action was a one time deal using your hydraulic/pneumatic screw gun on the assembly line.
If you were to unscrew it, you probably should be using a fresh screwed rivet to replace it.
Of course those days are long gone because of superior non screwed riveting and pretty much everything removable in automotive being replaced by hex for the same reason of phillips being easily strippable.
The standard just stuck around because it was cheap.
Yes, the design is meant to effectively have a torque limit where the driver will cam out before the screw strips.
I think a lot of people who strip screws do so because no one told them that Phillips and Posidriv are different and incompatible
They literally don't teach it at school and I'm pretty sure my grandpa couldn't tell the difference either so quite literally nobody taught me until I got a screwdriver kit that had both PH and PZ.
Is that what the PZ means, Posidriv?
It's spelled with a z ("Pozidriv"), hence this short form.
Star drive and Torx are so much better I can't believe they haven't taken over the whole world
just bought a bike from an american dude up here in Canada and I don't think he owned a metric hex key set, judging by how every other bolt is stripped to fuck
I'd ask how, but I bought my nephew his first set of tools for his 25th birthday. He doesn't exactly know how to use them (I'd gladly teach if I lived closer) but none of his blood relatives are mechanically inclined.
Still, better to have a plunger and not need one than to need a plunger and not have one.
Nah I'm buying hex screws/bolts or flathead ones. It is a feature, the feature is: the screw sucks.
I'm buying... Flathead...
Now see flathead is number two on my list of fasteners designed by dark forces.
It's even worse than Philips for power tools.
I recently got my first pocket hole jig. Pocket hole screws are, for whatever reason, square drive. They're perfect for wood, I luv them.

Robertson drive thank you very much, that’s the pride of Canada right there.



