This is not meant to piss off anyone named Phillip It is my personal opinion that the Phillips screw head is inferior and prone to stripping. At my "day job" we make custom displays and are forced to supply "phillips" hardware to any items we ship to the U.S.A. Here in Canada, we prefer the Robertson head for screws, bolts etc., and it has been my experience that they last much longer and will take more torque and abuse before stripping....
The tiny tiny screws in my LED's are phillips...Ive only manages to open a few without stripping the hell out of them...
Phillips and Robertson screws meet different needs though they may be misapplied. Phillips screws are self limiting with respect to torque. If you try to apply too much torque, a Phillips screwdriver is designed to slip out of the screw rather than continue to drive the screw into a material which can be damaged.
Once you know what parnass stated, and respect it, Phillips screws aren't so bad. I think people (including myself before) have a tendency to overdrive them, which of course results in the middle getting stripped. Phillips is definitely better than slotted. I am partial to torx, but they certainly aren't as EDC-friendly considering how many different sizes there are and that the exact size of driver is required. Allen would be better if not for fact that both metric and so-called "standard" sizes exist and that means it's easy to use a size that will work, but doesn't fit perfectly, facilitating rounding. That doesn't happen with torx, but again there are many torx sizes. With phillips, you can cover almost, if not all, size screws with just a few sizes: a tiny one, a #0, a #1-#2 ala Leatherman, and a #3, and in my experience the two middle sizes of those alone will cover at least 90%. I had a #4 Phillips screwdriver at one time but never needed to use it, and imagine that a #3 would get the job done.
Yes, I agree....what Parnass says makes perfect sense.... I too prefer Allan, or torx, but as you say, allan has many sizes plus the metric/standard issue (my bike has both on it...very frustrating) and torx are great, but are still hard to get your hands on in every day hardware/building supply stores...
This whole metric/standard thing is completely ridiculous. "Standard" should be phased out right now. I understand why it hasn't, but over the long run it's worse to have both in place. Sick of buying two sets of tools. Like there aren't enough different fastener types to worry about already.
Hell yeah...it can be very hard to tell which is which as the sizes are so close....even on my Japanese car (acura) there are parts with both standard and metric... ...I think it's a conspiracy perpetrated by the tool companies :rant:
I have found that a lot of slipping with philips screws was caused but the driver not seating properly. Someone suggested blunting the tips of the drivers so that they seat better. I have had pretty good luck with this on tiny to mid sized screwdrivers. My father in law says that if I would just get a quality screwdriver sized right that would work as well. - just a thought As to SAE I do not even mind a second standard as much as I mind the complete lack of standard denominator in the markings. 5/64 or 3/8 or ... Grief! work in 64ths or thousandths, or metric like the rest of the planet.
hmm, on that page, I had never seen screw types G and H before... the narrowness of the slots of G would make me think the driver would be a bit fragile.
Hey, I use the H variety quite a lot, the EH101 Merlin helicopter is covered in them. Pretty hard to find the drivers, but great to use! I seem to recall we call them Apex, though.
If Robertson hadn't been so paranoid (for good reason), his screws would dominate the world. Henry Ford wanted to use them in this new invention called the "automobile", but Robertson refused to allow the screws to be produced under license. Wikipedia On Robertson Screws parnass is right. Phillips screws serve a specific purpose. They also beat the h3ll out of Standard Slotted screws, which are the spawn of Satan and should be banned by international agreement. Kevin B.
I'm with you on that. Not that I can't convert 16ths to 64ths in my head, but there's no need to have to do it in the first place. When I reorganized the spare drill bits in our shop I numbered each pack as 4 for 1/16", 5 for 5/64", etc. and simply put them in numerical order.
Well I have a "thing" with Torx screws after trying to disassemble a cabinet in NY city at 2am in the morning without a Torx driver, I took a hammer and tried to destroy the cabinet into pieces (we only wanted what was inside), but after some failed attempts we took a Cab and told the driver "get me a Torx screwdriver". He drove to his garage and the guy lend me a Torx driver, I took it back next morning with some cash for the guy. Luigi
I like Torx better than Phillips, yeah, but I find that Torx can strip too. Someone on a forum once described a system that had a triangular cutout in the screw heads, and triangular bits to turn them. Now that sounds more resistant to stripping. I wonder why it hasn't caught on. (It would look cool, too!) -PJ
Torx head fasteners are designed for ease of automated insertion (e.g., on factory assembly lines). It is easier to insert the screwdriver into a 6-point Torx head than a 3-point triangle head because the screwdriver can be positioned at twice as many (correct) angles with the former. Again, note that by choosing the right fastener (limited vs. unlimited torque) you can choose whether breaking the fastener (screw) is more important than breaking the part being fastened.
