One additional bit of context on this. This is from Paul Pedriana’s blog. Paul passed unexpectedly last year. Among his many achievements, he was one of the key engineers behind the Sim City games and Oculus.
Here in the UK most new screws are Pozidriv, but many people confuse them with Philips as they are very similar. Mixing up Pozidriv/Philips results in the driver riding out and damaging the head. It should be required teaching in schools the difference between the two!
Pozidriv screws have a small engraved cross at 45 deg to the main recess. The drivers have a small matching flute in the grooves.
PZ are useless as a standard because it's not significantly different enough from others, and you can't tell which PZ you need.
Torx and hex is brilliant because you can easily say which shape of bit you need, and you'll instantly know if you pick the wrong one.
Luckily Torx seems to have finally won and screws that require any kind of moment (construction/decking/fasteners/) now seem to use them in stores, while only the kind of scre you'd hang up a picture frame with is PH/PZ.
I have never seen a square (Robertson?) screw in the wild, I assume that's regional.
Canadian here. I have been using Robertsons for forty years. It's all you can get at the hardware store: #10/black-handle screwdriver, #8/red, #6/green and #4/yellow. They are a joy to work with. They're so good nobody will buy the old straight slot or Philips.
Slide a screw onto the screwdriver. Hold it horizontally. Holds fast. Can you do that with Torx?
Yes, absolutely, and even better than Robertson does.
The way I'd describe Torx to someone who is used to Robertson is that Torx is like Robertson, only more so. That is, all the things you'd consider the strengths of Robertson are things that Torx is better at.
Agreed, having used both kinds I find Torx tend to hold better. Not sure if the tolerances are tighter, but I’ve come across Robinson that tend to be a bit loose and it’s much easier to strip.
Torx fit very snuggly and even the smaller bolt is hard to strip as long as you have the right but size.
Peter Robertson (the inventor) is Canadian and Robertson screws are very popular there as you mentioned. They exist elsewhere in varying degrees.
For example, I live in Southern California and I haven't seen them at the hardware store until recently. I found one behind a wall-plate in my home several years ago when I was changing a light switch. Thankfully, I'm Canadian, so I already had the right tool -- right next to the unspent Canadian Tire money in my toolbox. ;)
Yeah the legend goes something like Robertson tried to get Henry Ford to use them but wanted too much money to license the design. As an American the only Robertson screws I've ever seen came from the subwoofer enclosure on my car… which I imported from Canadia.
> Torx and hex is brilliant because you can easily say which shape of bit you need, and you'll instantly know if you pick the wrong one.
In my experience, a problem with Torx is that it is a common mistake to use a bit one size smaller than what it should be. It will still engage just fine, but if you apply too much force, you'll destroy the bit, or head, or both. I find it a lot harder to notice when I pick the wrong size Torx bit, compared to a Philips or Pozidriv.
I have made this mistake a lot when using Torx. I have learned myself to always test a bit one size larger than what I think I need, just to be sure.
Yeah for this exact reason I despise torx. The last couple of cars I've owned have tonnes of torx screws, and as they rust and accumulate road grime over the years they change size. You will only be able to fit a T20 into an arch liner screw to start with, then as you turn it the rust and dirt dislodges, and it either becomes the next size up or cams out and rounds off. In weaker metals they round hilariously easily (torque wrench set to 20NM on a sump plug, torque wrench set to 7NM on a brake disc set screw).
My experience of Torx screws in high torque applications (bolting together Bosch high pressure diesel pumps) also makes them seem flawed, as the small contact area results in damage to the screw (hardened, awful to drill out, yet still round off with an almighty crack when enough pressure is applied, hence needing to drill out) or damage to the thin ends of the Torx driver itself 50% of the time.
Yeah, I haven't used Torx, but the author listed 100 sizes as a feature, and I'd strongly disagree. I think Robinson having a small number of sizes makes it extremely obvious when you're using the wrong one, and you can almost always tell the correct Robinson to use by sight alone. (the author lists 6 sizes, but in practice 100% of applications I've seen have used one of three)
Not sure how many sizes of Torz there actually are, but I have only seen T10,15,20,25,30,35,40 which is 7 sizes. I think I saw a smaller one in a precision screwdriver set next to the other weird iPhone/watch ones like tiny pentalobes. But effectively Torx for all normal applications is one of 7 sizes, with T20 and T25 being probably 95% of all wood screws for building/carpentry applications.
I wasn’t aware that there could even be a “T17” or “T31” - simply because no one would ever do it. Increments of 5 is already close enough to some times guess wrong.
In my experience appropriately sizing Philips is basically impossible unless the screw itself is marked. The #2 is way more common it seems so that helps with the default but if you know it isn’t #2 then you are screwed (har har) because many different size drivers will ‘fit’ and ‘work’.
"I have never seen a square (Robertson?) screw in the wild, I assume that's regional."
The way I heard it was that Mr. Robertson gave his new screws to Henry Ford for testing. Ford wanted to use them but Robertson insisted on a royalty per screw. Ford would not agree to that so the deal failed. This is probably the reason they are a regional rather than an international screw. The entire electrical hardware industry uses square heads in Canada.
(Source: Probably CBC radio many decades ago (?) )
Most of the cement board screws I've used (for installing shower tile) are square head; I've not done much shower work so I don't know if that's a trend or just what the store has at the time.
My fleetwood mobile home built in the late 90s was assembled entirely with square head screws, hex head lag bolts, glue, and a lot of staples.
> I have never seen a square (Robertson?) screw in the wild, I assume that's regional.
Almost exclusively Canadian I believe.
You can get them though, I bought a Kreg pocket hole jig in the UK which came with some for some reason, and had no problem getting bits for them (Amazon I think).
They’re absolutely everywhere in Canada, so much so that it’s easy to forget that they’re not used everywhere. As a curiosity for anyone non-Canadian, if you were going to go to the hardware store and get screws to screw together some dimensional lumber (e.g. 2x4s), what kind of drive would you expect to find? I’m not even sure if I could find 3” wood screws here that aren’t Robertson.
Standard would be pozidriv, probably PZ2. You could certainly get torx if you preferred though (or Phillips or flat, if you really hate yourself!) - UK.
Now that’s really interesting! In Canada, where Robertson is almost ubiquitous, Sheetrock screws are one of the few exceptions in construction that still use Philips-head screws; usually with a special bit that forces the driver to cam out once the head is flush with the wall.
I see Robertson on Decks/Decking mostly --they are stainless or rust resistant so their necks/shanks don't weaken over time. Others rust and when you try to take them out they shear off easily.
"I have never seen a square (Robertson?) screw in the wild, I assume that's regional."
Simpson makes very large diameter, 4" stainless steel screws that I rather like:
#12 x 4", model number is S12400DBB
... those are 306 stainless but if you want 316 you would get T12400DBB.
IF we use screw fasteners in framing, we typically use GRK 3-1/8"-#10 but once in a while we just want something beefier and those simpson 4"-#12 are fantastic ...
We get some Simpsons stuff in Europe (like nail plates and beam hangers) but I don’t think the screws are sold in Europe. If they were I don’t think it would be very easy to introduce a square bit screw in s as market where they are unknown.
And obviously, not much uses any imperial naming. I think this is regionally produced because e.g a beam hanger for 45mm timber has to be pretty close to 45mm and a 2” won’t do.
Something that took me an embarrassing long time to realize was that North American electrical outlet binding terminals are a combination slotted/Robertson screw head. The Robertson is great.
Klein tools makes combination head tools that engage both, which is fantastic if you are upgrading a bunch of outlets.
Pozidriv exists almost entirely because the old patent expired. It is not sufficiently better than Philips that the overall fastener situation is improved by its existence.
Imo that's the main failure of the posix, it _looks_ like a Phillips, and behaves like one of you use a Phillips bit. Which is rather unfortunate and not really it's fault, but hard to overlook for "normal" usage.
I've just been doing some repairs on an old deck and all the hardware is square. I don't think I've ever seen a square screw/bolt before moving to North America...
With most of my deck screws I just can't get them and have to force the board off or try to pull them out like nails. Between dirt, rust, corrision and some s(l)ight inaccuracies between the driver and the screw I can't seem to get a grab without rounding the square. As the article mentions you have to keep pushing the driver in which isn't always easy depending on what sort of access you have. The other problem is there's so many different sizes and there doesn't seem to be a clear way to figure out the right bit given their slight variations and the condition of old screws.
Would be interesting to try and quantify these differences with tests. I still prefer Allen screws, especially if you can get enough depth. The difference between the sizes is pretty clear (if you can tell if it's metric or not...) and they seem to grab pretty solidly. Don't have that much experience with Torx but when working on my BMW motorcycle that had a lot of Torx bolts they seemed to work fairly well, too many different styles/sizes for my liking though so harder to find the correct bit...
If you're not already, use an impact driver. It's much much easier to prevent cam out compared to a regular drill. I think they also make the job less taxing because you can get away with applying a lot less pressure.
Having recently replaced the hinges for a 1940s house, I think this might be the way.
I got the flat head screws out by cleaning the groove, putting a screw driver in, then smacking it with a hammer, hard. Then I unscrewed. It took a lot of time, and about 1/3rd the screws snapped in half (which was fairly helpful, as it got the hinge off).
The hammer is the key. Granted I'm not working on 1940s stuff so you have a unique challenge. Usually I am just dealing with painted over screws no older than 1970s, but usually just a good screwdriver and a hammer gets the job done for me.
And this is an important feature of slotted screws, it is much easier to get paint out of them than any other system. If the screws snap it is usually a case of bad screws rather than the system. The ultimate driver for slotted screws is a Stanley Yankee, and probably what put them in the first time!
I had a similar problem replacing some deck boards. Mine where Philips heads.
I was able to get some out with a manual impact driver and later some out with an electric impact driver. I had quite a few though that this didn't work on.
What I ended up doing, which only works if you don't need to avoid damaging the board, was use a wood chisel to clear remove the wood around the screw head. I then gripped the exposed head tightly with locking pliers roughly perpendicular to the axis of the screw. It was then fairly easy to turn the screws.
A small number of the heads broke off, but the locking pliers had no trouble turning those by the shaft instead.
I used Milwaukee locking pliers [1]. Unlike most locking pliers where the locking knob is designed to only be turned directly by hand, the Milwaukee locking knob has a hole through it meant to allow you to stick a metal rod such as a screwdriver through it and use that to get a lot more torque for turning the knob than you can get by hand [2]. You can get an insanely tight lock this way.
I only had one screw that this failed with. That one broke off low enough to leave nothing exposed above the bottom board. For that one I just left it in and made sure to place the replacement screw slightly to the side so it would go into wood instead of hitting the old screw.
> Unlike most locking pliers where the locking knob is designed to only be turned directly by hand, the Milwaukee locking knob has a hole through it meant to allow you to stick a metal rod such as a screwdriver through it and use that to get a lot more torque for turning the knob than you can get by hand [2]. You can get an insanely tight lock this way.
Why not open the pliers, tighten the knob, then close the pliers again? You have lots of leverage in closing the pliers; do you need even more than that?
I don't know if more than that is needed. I had never needed locking pliers before replacing those deck boards. Home Depot had several from Milwaukee and Husky, plus a couple from Stanley. The Milwaukee ones generally had better customer ratings, and some YouTube reviews I found liked them and mentioned the tightness of the lock you can get due to the screwdriver slot.
I couldn't think of any situation where that would be a hindrance and it might be helpful in some situations, so I went with them. Also, the "t" in "tzs" stands for "Tim" so I was sort of obligated to go for more power. :-)
If you’re really struggling, you can get a screw remover bit - typically just a little tapered hardened metal bit that has a counterclockwise cutting thread. Dead easy for getting out headless wonders.
This, definitely. If you don't have one with you, you can also hammer a slightly larger torx bit into the rounded square and unscrew. This may damage the bit, though.
> I've just been doing some repairs on an old deck and all the hardware is square. I don't think I've ever seen a square screw/bolt before moving to North America...
This sounds like Robertson, which is uniquely Canadian. Are you in Canada by any chance?
I love these kind of real world tests of technologies applied in the field. A great YouTube channel along a similar vein is Project Farm, https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm
While he doesn't go into the science and physics directly, he often shows the precise outcomes and results of controlled tests to compare brands against one another. It's always fun when he reads a manufacturer's claim and makes it abundantly clear "we're going to test that."
I recall that this project farm channel also did a test of various pickup truck bed liner products you can apply yourself, if you have something you really want to protect. The results were quite different between them.
I have seen some people cover the entire body panels of dedicated purpose off road 4x4 with bed liner or a similar product as a protective layer.
they test all sorts of useful things like sds plus hammer drill bits and similar.
In particular, Project Farm does an edge keeness (BESS) test for all the things. This test is almost entirely testing the edge geometry rather than the knife itself. If you resharpen the blade to be thinner, it will get a higher BESS score. A butterknife will roll into a useless edge after just a couple cuts due to the soft steel, but will score incredibly well on a BESS test because the blade stock is already so thin.
A more accurate review would focus much more on things like whether your knife steel will chip easily if you apply lateral pressure (a lot of high-edge retention steels do this, but will last practically forever between sharpenings if used well) or how long will this steel hold a working edge? ("D2 takes a lousy edge and holds it forever") or "will this knife rust too easily in my profession" (rustproof steels like o1, LC200N, and Vanex exist, but tend to be on more specialized knives and generally make other tradeoffs). Can I sharpen this knife without spending a ton of money on diamond sharpeners? Is the knife comfortable for long cutting sessions or are there hot spots? Is this knife going to be a bit small or large for an average hand? Do the pieces fit together well and are they milled well? What kind of locking mechanism is used and is it one that works well for me (especially in gloves)? Is the blade shape and size designed for my kind of cutting tasks?
There's thousands of radically different knives not just because of personal preferences, but because the changes make a difference in how the knife performs at different jobs.
If you want general knife reviews on youtube, Metal Complex, Nick Shabazz, and Slicey Dicey are probably the top three. Cedric & Ada is a great reviewer if you're interested in knife cut testing. Advanced Knife Bro is great if you like a more sarcastic style. They have something to sell, but Knifecenter has some pretty good content too. If you like Swiss Army Knives (or are in a country like the UK that mostly bans the good knives), Felix Immler literally wrote the book on using them for bushcrafting.
Larrin Thomas' site knife steel nerds (and his book) is a must-read if you're interested in the really in-depth knowledge about steels and how they relate to knives. His new supersteel (MagnaCut) is doing really crazy things in the knife world at the moment. Science of Sharp also deserves a shoutout for some interesting work on microscopic images of various sharpening techniques and steels.
Be warned that an "all-arounder" midrange, drop point knife will be $100-250 and it may be hard to buy just one.
Thanks for the detailed guidance to future HN readers!
> Larrin Thomas' site knife steel nerds (and his book) is a must-read if you're interested in the really in-depth knowledge about steels and how they relate to knives. His new supersteel (MagnaCut) is doing really crazy things in the knife world at the moment. Science of Sharp also deserves a shoutout for some interesting work on microscopic images of various sharpening techniques and steels.
Steel quality is also important to physical security (e.g. fasteners, locks, doors) which in turn underpins many assumptions of digital security.
The most important advantage of Robertson, and the reason why people in construction love them, is that you can put them on your screwdriver/drill/driver and they won't fall off - no matter the orientation you hold it. It's a productivity game changer.
The tapered fit is the reason, and the article outright dismisses this and claims it "increases cam-out". Even with a worn bit, pushing a screw onto the bit means you can grab hold of the screw and swing the drill around. In practice, (especially with impact drivers), the bit seats myself in the screw so thoroughly that you will break the head off the screw before it strips.
This is exactly the reason I love Robertson. You can install screws one-handed or in hard-to-access areas very quickly because the taper locks the screw to the driver. Torx and hex drives don't have this important feature.
Not to mention that there are technically six Robertson head sizes, but 90+% of screws are #2 and basically nothing uses any sizes other than #1 and very occasionally #3.
I get tired of needing a bit box with 10 different torx sizes so I can find the right one.
No "science" here, all anecdote built from boats, skis, and a moderate amount general use:
Flat head: the bigger the better in this format, and simplicity has it's place, but easy to destroy in a variety of situations. Also, when you're out of options cutting a flathead slot into a destroyed screw might just work. The classic 6.5/10
Phillips: everywhere, but rather bad. You get a finite but unknown number of interactions with Phillips heads before it suddenly strips out and you're sad. This includes both the screws and the bits, Philips bits are the only ones I've ever had that shatter, the rest fairly predictably deform and can be retired.
Square (Robertson): bettr than the above. However, they're also like hex (Allen) but less good.
Hex (Allen): one of my favorites, and they scale rather well. BUT, if you strip it at all, maybe even once, you're done, the angles are shallow enough that there's no coming back, you've cut out a circle.
Posix: like Phillips if you squint, but if you actually use the right bit and, most importantly, push down harder than seems reasonable times 2, you'll pretty much never have a problem.
Torx: not lots of experience, and there's the rub. At the moment they're a hard bit for a layperson to find, regardless of their advantages
Here in Norway Torx is everywhere, almost all new screws and bits. It is like Torx is USB 3.0 and everything else is "legacy".
Torx just works. Never an issue (except smallest bit size TX10 can wear out quickly). I guess disadvantage is you need to have them in 4-5 sizes depending on screw size, like Hex, but that is easily worth it.
The smallest Torx size is a T1 (or TX1, whatever)! This size is best described as "pray that you never have to use it". I think I did... once... or maybe that was just staring at the driver wondering what it's for. Still, we have 16 different Torx sizes around here. Sixteen!
Also, there's a thing called Torx Plus out there. You can buy Torx Plus screws and things will work out for you, but don't buy Torx Plus bits unless you know what you're doing. That said, if you do use Torx Plus bits with Torx Plus screws, it works really well.
Off the top of my head there's TORX / tamper resistant TORX, TORX Plus, tamper resistant TORX Plus, whatever the external/female variant is called. TR TORX simply has a pin in the middle of the head, but TR TORX+ has five lobes versus six.
TORX Plus has made its rounds on the automotive circuit. It's designed to be somewhat backwards compatible but it is a lot easier to damage the fastener with a normal TORX driver.
That side note problem surely ranks as the #1 downside of torx. The practical solution seems to lie in restricting torx sizes to a much smaller subset, e.g. jump right up to T25 if T10 isn't enough (I think some fields actually do this?). But if you have the full set of drivers you can still mess up, no doubt.
I wonder if the pin/hole tolerances of the "tamper proof" variants are tight enough to keep the slightly smaller out? Then it's not so much about keeping out people who don't own the right tools (gatekeeping) but about keeping out hands that happen to not hold the right tool at the moment, which is very well possible even if one should know better, and the right tool is available as well. You should never blame the user for a mistake that could have been prevented by better UI.
the secure/tamperproof torx are fine, actually;
sometimes all screws are T15, and during a repair one of them has become T20 (embiggen the hole and what not). Preventing user errors in such cases is important, indeed.
> Side note: mistakenly using a smaller torx driver demolishes both the screw head and the driver... and it usually fits well.
Ahh yes, I learned this the hard way. T20 bit for a T25 screw, for example. It might work for a few screws then all of a sudden the next one gets destroyed.
From an automotive point-of-view TORX like Allen / "inhex" suffers because you can get a bunch of crap in the head and make it easier to get a bad fit with your driver and damage the fastener head. External/female TORX is also problematic because, you guessed it, you can get all sorts of gunk in the splines.
Torx are readily available everywhere here. Even discounter chains like Aldi have seasonal offerings (toolset containing Torx screwdrivers). I think you mean Apple's special pentalobe design for the iPhone (maybe also macbooks now)
They all wear out eventually, if you use them - but much more slowly than Philips or posidrive. Even a chewed up torx bit will still usually do the job - but a chewed up cross is useless.
I'd _very_ lightly push back on that for a posidrive, but it has a lot of asterisks. IF you can keep enough pressure on a posi, I've not seen issues. but if you can't it's failure case approaches the dreaded Phillips. And "enough pressure" is in the range of 170lbs of dude pushing down for really difficult situations in my experience, so yeah, "*"s abound.
Fair! I'm speaking from a US perspective here for torx availability, and largely interacting with things I didn't get to decide the hardware on myself.
Oh in that case you're just very apparently 40 years behind?, there are kits sold in supermarkets in the US that carry Torx bits. They are not uncommon at all.
In addition to automotive it is all over appliances, electronics (eg hard drives), laptops, small electronic devices including smart phones.
The Husky toolkit I purchased from Home Depot 25 years ago included Torx bits.
I am actually stupefied that someone can differentiate Philips from Pozidrive but isn't aware you can pick up a Torx driver set from any Walmart or Harbor Freight.
Okay you can find the bits, but what about the screws? I was specifically looking for them a while back and turns out the vast majority of screws that I was finding at stores (home depot, lowes, various local places) were still phillips. The ones that were robertsons or torx were the wrong configuration (metal, size, head type, etc). I ended up buying some online instead.
Just to show some data, go to home depot page and look at the screws categorized by drive style: I'm seeing ~2600 phillips heads, ~500 star (which appears to be torx under a different name), 55 square, and 27 torx (under the torx name).
> Okay you can find the bits, but what about the screws? I was specifically looking for them a while back and turns out the vast majority of screws that I was finding at stores (home depot, lowes, various local places) were still phillips.
Home Depot / Lowes is at least 50% torx screws these days. They're impossible to miss. Not sure where you're looking, but I'm talking about the actual physical store.
Especially if you look at screws intended for decking/lumber, it'll be an even higher % than 50.
>> At the moment they're a hard bit for a layperson to find, regardless of their advantages
That was the original comment, that is all I responded to - which is just a completely ridiculous.
And if you work on cars, you'll encounter the fasteners all the time.
But there's a very popular construction screw sold at Home Depot, etc that uses a "star" bit. The overall fastener selection at Home Depot isn't amazing, never has been - they've never been much of a hardware store. Check Grainger or something.
The "use things I don't choose the hardware for" is the more relavent part. And I didn't mean the torx is actually hard to find in stores, rather that I don't see it much in the wild. I have torx bits I'd love to use more, but minus some small electronics I rarely run into the screws in the wild. Even electronics I see hex far more often. Like I said, just what I see in my activities
"Torx: not lots of experience, and there's the rub. At the moment they're a hard bit for a layperson to find, regardless of their advantage ..."
In the US Torx is everywhere.
In fact, when I consider doing any kind of construction project or building outside of the US (in Europe, for instance) one of the major downsides would have to be my near total reliance on GRK screws and Simpson fasteners.
I would not want to have to build things without easy access to products from those two firms.
In the US the best option (although expensive) is products from Fasten Master. For ledger bolts, their LedgerLok product is far superior to the alternatives and their TimberLok product is a /structural/ wood screw.
My family is in construction and I called my dad up after snapping the heads off too many torx drive deck screws and he suggested these. I’ve /NEVER/ broken one and I exclusively use a 20V impact driver on max when driving fasteners.
GRK is my preferred second choice and I find it better than Grip-Rite, DeckMate, or Spax. Another thing is that construction screws are usually more durable than deck screws, anymore, as deck screws are generally ceramic now to prevent corrosion but weaker shaft strength.
All of these brands are available at any home store in the US pretty much.
Where do you live that Torx are hard to find? They are nothing short of a standard on automotive applications, and any "mechanics" screwdriver, like the very popular Megapro in North America will carry Torx bits - but any big box store selection will include them.
A major problem with pretty much all types of screws is identification. Slotted and Phillips screws almost never seem to have the right depth or width for the drivers you have on hand. Torx and hex screws have a metric (and imperial) bleep-ton of different driver sizes. Plus, there's security hex screws and weird abominations like Apple's pentalobe garbage to confuse matters even more. Robertson screws come in just 6 color coded driver sizes, only a couple of which are common. However, the U.S. has shitty non-tapered square-drive screws and drivers that mess even the noble Robertson up.
At this point, I'm happy to let Robertson and torx screws co-exist. Just phase out, obsolete, or otherwise fire into the sun all the truly shitty screws out there to help reduce the number of drivers you need to have banging about in a respectable driver drawer. Seriously, there's just too damned many different things out there. Any company (e.g. Apple) that feels the need to make their own new screw just for the heck of it can go sit naked on a soft-boiled egg and spin.
At least the Torx driver sizes are the same for metric and imperial (unlike hex heads where you need a separate set if you need to do anything with imperial screws/bolts). I find three good drivers are enough for 95% of what you need for electronics, and then a cheap interchangeable head set gets you the rest of what you normally need.
In my experience Robertson is much better for anything that is a large head size and will be treated roughly, like a self tapping wood screw being driven by a power driver.
Torx is more suited for precision electronics stuff. Or assembling machinery.
Yeah, we do exactly that, using the square ones (I expect they are Robinson) for the self tapping screws on the wooden crates we ship our satellite terminals and high speed radios in that we make. Everything inside the crate is Torx screws and Hex drive bolts.
Switching from Phillips screws has solved a lot of problems we used to have in maintaining the products, especially in marine applications.
A stroll down the screw aisle at my local hardware store says otherwise. Most heavy duty, high quality construction screws in USA stores like Lowes or Home Depot offer deck, wood and carpentry screws in Torx format. The GRK brand in particular makes the most bulletproof screws I’ve ever found, and I’ve used them for framing, cabinetry, decking and almost anything imaginable.
By contrast I almost never see machine or metal fastening screws in Torx format, almost always these are Philips or Hex.
You may be in the US, not Canada? The stick built wood house construction industry and others in Canada have used robertson wood screws with much greater popularity for 40+ years vs. the USA.
There is one advantage of Philips/Pozidriv I can think of: I have two Philips screwdrivers on my Swiss pocket knife, and they are compatible with a wide size-range of Philips/Pozidriv screws. While for Torx I need to have a set of around 6-8 Torx bits to cover a similar range.
My pocket knife is more likely to be with me than my Torx screwdriver set.
Interestingly my pocket knife's screwdrivers feel so much better than dedicated Philips screwdrivers. Maybe because the bits are designed to cover the size range, while dedicated screwdrivers are for a very specific size, and they very much suck if you have a mismatch.
Yeah, and I don't like Pozidriv, because it is looks like it is compatible with Philips, but it performs poorly with it, and doesn't have the same margins of tolerance if you have the wrong size of the bit.
Philips is _enough_. In fact, for most purposes, a slot screw was enough. I am not carrying my bits collection everywhere.
> In fact, for most purposes, a slot screw was enough.
Enough for removing, but I dread fastening more than a couple slotted bolts at a time- the driver always slides out easily, is not self centering, and you still need several sizes to reliably undo both small and large bolts.
For manufacturers on assembly line, if something is not user serviceable, yes, it is OK to use anything, from Torx to Pentalobe to something even more exotic.
But if I ever need to service something, I want it to be accessible; I want somebody at least think about it for once.
My favorite screw drive type is hybrid Slotted/Philips screw. If it is large enough to be unscrewed by a coin and somebody have thought about it too -- even better.
Do you know the screws used in electric outlets that looks like crossover between Phillips and flathead so it can be driven by both? (or even Robertson #1)
Recently I learned that there are screwdrivers that fit those screws perfectly by being flathead with Robertson #1 in the middle.
Except the ones that can't, which infuriates me to no end.
I was just saying to someone (after having stripped some Phillips head 8-32 screws that stripped by just looking at them) that it's amazing that the guy who invented the worst screw is famous for them. The lesson? Life is not fair.
In defence of 'security' screws, they are commonly used in applications where it is a regulatory requirement to make it impossible to open an enclosure with common tools, such as power bricks which have exposed mains wiring inside. They are a great compromise here, as they can satisfy the certification authorities while still being accessible to a motivated end user with an amazon driver kit.
Can't help for readers in Poland, but in the US, all I ever use are GRK screws, which use a variety of different Torx sizes.
I primarily keep stock of their 'cabinet' screws which have a washer head useful for mounting all sorts of things and their multi-purpose framing screws. I'll buy their trim screws as needed.
They are excellent fasteners and they're readily stocked in Home Depot near me, which is a big positive.
Robertson is a Canadian invention and is used extensively in Canada. Philips is probably still more common but Robertson screws are readily available everywhere.
In France, it depends a lot on the target and size of the store.
They are still relatively rare in city stores that target the general consumer, but they are readily available in larger suburban/rural stores. However, even in these, small boxes are usually only available in Pozidriv, but bigger boxes are often available in both Pozidriv and Torx, the latter being a bit more expensive.
I've never really seen Torx screws in a hardware shop in my country (Australia), but if you know where to go (e.g. a dedicated fastener supplier) or order online they're very easily available. But you need to know exactly what you're looking for (like 'M3x15mm Torx machine screw'), so maybe the answer is no for the average consumer...
In Europe Torx is swiftly replacing Philips. Screws and bits are readily available in every hardware store in every size. My feeling is they already overtook Philips.
I can only speak for the US, but here I have no problem finding Torx fasteners at Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, etc. And of course they're readily available online.
There's a great little book "One Good Turn" by Canadian architect, professor and writer Witold Rybczynski where he points out that "A Robertson screw can always be unscrewed".
I had no idea Robertson still existed. I received a box of them for free when they were [Edit] being pushed in the 80's and loved them. The screw would stay on the bit no matter what angle I held the drill which made putting screws into hard to reach places super easy. No need for magnetic bits or other tricks. The local stores only carry Phillips, Hex and Torx so I buy Torx for the smaller screws and Hex for the bigger fence post screws.
Oh I guess not. It was a big promo and was pushed as if they were "a new thing" but it seems that must have been a marketing thing. This was in the 1980's. Thankyou for the clarification.
Robertson screws were legion in the Mobile home industry in the 80s and 90s. Also saw them in some "not user serviceable" electronics where they were an early nod to what we'd call security screws today.
Most general purpose Torx screws are T20 anyway; it's pretty much the 'middle' and default Torx size, much like Pozidriv 2. I don't really mind having to change bits if that means I get the benefits of a good fit and enough torque.
For woodworking and DIY I use T20 80% of the time. T15 15%, and then rarely T10, T25, and T30. I installed a pair of window sill screws with wall anchors once that had a T40 head; great torque and no cam out! Torx really shines in those applications.
T9, T8, T7, T6, T5, etc. I've really only encountered on hard disks when dismantling them for fun. Not something most people would need. So for Torx most people are set with a supply of T10, T15, T20, T25, and T30 bits. T20 is really the only one I wear out (or lose) more than one per year of.
No one knows what that weirdly numbered T27 bit is for, but I guess it's good to have just in case.
So my take away is that Torx is the better system, Square drive (Robertson) is okay, and both would be a lot better then the nightmare world of Phillips we have today.
The implication that we're stuck with Phillips because Ford couldn't license Robertson is wild though: I wonder what was going on that made him so resistant to licensing.
My understanding is that in the days before automated control, the cam out of Phillips was a desirable feature: Just torque the screw till it cams out, and it's perfectly set each time.
I don't it see being ISO standard as a plus, it means you are not allowed to copy the specification or ship it with the product or have it for download on your page.
One advantage of Torx head bolts over hex bolts, is that the same torque head can be smaller in Torx. This is desirable for cars where a smaller bolt and driver (e-torx socket in this case) make access possible. So they can jam even more doohickeys into the engine bay.
I’ve used Torx in a dozen projects over the last year, because that’s what everyone sells now. I’ve hated every minute of using them. The screw heads strip so easily, even on expensive stainless steel versions.
Cannot recognize this at all. In fact, Torx-screws are the only door-mounting[0] screws I have ever been able to screw out rather than cut.
[0]: Where I live (Denmark) doors and windows are these days mounted with an 8 mm hard steel screw directly into a slightly undersized hole in the brick wall ("montageskrue" in danish). These are by far the highest torque screws I have ever worked with. The early versions used Phillips rather than Torx, and nobody even bothers trying to get those loose before breaking out the saw.
Really? I haven't used Torx all that much but in my limited experience it's a godsend compared to Philips. Philips heads strip way too easily. It's hard to imagine how Torx could be worse.
You are aware that stainless is softer than common steel, and definitely more likely to strip out? They are more expensive, but best reserved for times when their softness is worth trading for corrosion resistance.
I find you need to concentrate with Torx screws to properly engage the bit and make sure the clutch on your drill is set right, otherwise yeah you can definitely strip them. But with Phillips especially and to a lesser extent Robertson they just strip no matter what you do.
I live in a country where all you see is Phillips or Pozidriv; and it's very common to mix them up. No Torx (except on some imported electronics, and rarely). In furniture there's some use of Allen for flush-head screws.
This is hell on Earth! Cam-out, cam-out, cam-out of all those cheap mushy-metal Phillips heads. And don't tell me to get harder screws: Usually you don't get to choose, you work with what's provided or already installed.
I just _wish_ Torx or Robertson would catch on here.
A lot of the internet woodworkers like to act like Robertson or Torx is the only way to go but after about 10 years of reasonably serious hobby/DIY experience I can honestly say that I have never found a #2 Phillips head to be deficient. I actually prefer them because (1) the screws are cheaper, and (2) everybody has a Philips head screwdriver laying around. When you need to adjust something in a pinch, #2 Phillips is king.
After 40 years of cursing at stripped Phillips heads, I finally discovered the Japanese Industrial Standard. https://www.mcmaster.com/jis-(japanese-industrial-standard)-... They are designed NOT to cam, and grip Phillips screws like a champ. You can use JIS drivers on Phillips screws, even though they're technically a different standard. Apparently one of the best-kept secrets of my lifetime. I can't get those 40 years back, but your life just got better. You are welcome.
I have one screwdriver that works miracles like that on Philips head screws--the one on my ~40 year old Victorinox Swiss army knife. I've always wondered what the heck they did different from every other screwdriver I've ever owned to make theirs work so much better.
Now I'm wondering if they are actually following some other standard like that Japanese one.
Speaking of screwdrivers, anyone else here also have way more screwdrivers than you can explain? I can only remember ever buying a small number of screwdrivers, but I have several times that number. Most of them don't match any of the others in handle shape and color and material, so it isn't like I bought a couple or so sets that I've forgotten buying. I seem to have somehow individually acquired a bunch of screwdrivers.
I'm not now nor have ever been a very DIY person and all my screwing needs are easily met by just a handful of screwdrivers.
Unfortunately the JIS standard was phased out and merged with the ISO standard for Phillips screws. I'm sure there's a detail I'm missing about how that was done, but it's harder to find JIS stuff than it used to be. Supposedly the new Phillips standard includes part of what made JIS work so well.
Some older friends who told me stories about people ruining JIS fasteners on bikes and motorcycles because they assumed it was just a Philips. I think the depth of the point is part of the distinction and it causes the drivers to not have adequate contact with the screw head.
JIS drivers work extremely well to break frozen Phillips screws. I've also used JIS screwdrivers to fix partially stripped Phillips screws: Tap on the stripped screws with a JIS screwdriver and hammer to reform the head, then turn. Or even better, use an impact JIS driver. Saved my skin many times on my motorcycles. https://www.amazon.com/Vessel-125943-P3x150-Impacta-Screwdri...
Does it have another cross lightly engraved on the head, 45 degrees off from the main cross? Then it's Pozidriv. Does it have a small circular dot in one corner of the head? Then it's JIS.
There may be the occasional unmarked JIS screw though.
I would count easy to strip as deficient. But I almost never strip them. If you're stripping screws, either your technique is bad or the screws are garbage.
No, there are lots of situations where Phillips just aren't good enough. We have marine applications with small, 316 stainless screws into metal where they'd commonly get a bit gummed up and become extremely easy to strip and get stuck. Since switching everything to Torx (or hex for larger bolts), we've never had a problem with any screws getting stuck or damaged. Same manufacturer of the screws, same sizes, same materials, just different head.
Now I use Torx or hex head screws for my personal projects too because they're so much easier to work with once you have some drivers.
> If you're stripping screws, either your technique is bad or the screws are garbage.
Or you're asking for more than the screws are good for. I work in R&D. I've had to do things with fasteners that no one should have to do... and I know this because we redesigned that BS as soon as we could. Phillips has given me plenty of trouble in anything harder than light duty use. Torx and hex have both always been fine. Even if hex is theoretically not very good, somehow it's always good enough in the real world. (The availability of hex ball drivers probably accounts for at least some of this. But now there are Torx ball drivers too!) I've got JIS Phillips, I've got American Phillips, I've got DIN/ISO Phillips, I can tell the difference between them, I know when to use all of them, and I can confidently say I hate 'em all.
Software engineers should understand that one of the great tragedies of life is having to interact with things that an incompetent person touched before you.
In my experience, Philips is not really that bad as long as you're using the right sized driver.
I've come across a lot of screws that look like they should take a #1 bit, on account of being so small. But they actually have a #2 head, which can be driven with a #1 driver, with a lot of effort and damage to the screw head.
For such a common tool, this is a pretty major flaw in usability.
I've noticed that there are some torx screws at the hardware store, but it's still absolutely dominated by phillips. Out of what has to be desperation, people seem to have moved to using impact drivers to put in all their screws. So now we have solved the problem of a garbage screw head design in the most complicated, non-optimal way imaginable.
I feel like something important here that's been overlooked is how easy it is to get the driver into the socket. This places a very real limit on how fast a large number of screws can be driven. Torx has fairly small tolerances and can be annoying to get in; I've never used Robertson but it seems easier to get in.
> Torx has been widely replacing Robertson in the United States since then.
I think this depends on industry. The last time I went to Home Depot or Lowes to pick up wood screws, I don’t remember seeing Torx at all, but the square drives (Robertson) are.
I'd never even heard of Robertson before but had seen funny square bits in cheap screwdriver bit sets and wondered what they were for.
They're just not a thing in the UK, or at least in Scotland. It's interesting that a lot of cheap DIY store stuff is coming with Torx screws, and indeed Lidl often sells packs of actually quite nice Torx wood screws in various sizes with the correct bit included.
But if you're actually trying to loosen/tighten the screw, the natural response to the driver camming out is to press on harder, and then the head does get damaged.
People who dis the imperial measurement system (as this post does) don’t appreciate the duodecimal system. It’s a ‘forced’ way of thinking of measurement and better when used in commerce. The metric system can support duodecimal but people have to be selective with their numbers (e.g. Plato’s 5040)
Highly composite numbers are under-appreciated. There are more divisors in 12 than in 10. Matching our number system to fingers isn’t ideal in a lot of cases.
20-ish years ago, Compaq went through this phase also. Every screw in their desktop machines were Torx. It was real pain as Torx drivers weren't commonly available (in the UK).
Compaq were already using Torx for their products in the 80s and 90s, including some Torx variation screw with a slot cut across.
I don't know whether this was for some simple form of tamper resistance (I do not believe they actually used the security Torx), or rather for some reasons related to manufacturing and maintenance, which I find much more likely.
As the article points out, Torx does have superior torque handling, especially in a time where "lesser" screws may have been more common in PCs, and the use of automatic torque-limiting screwdrivers during manufacture and service would've been an advantage.
Yes, for the outside of computer cases, but also for everything else like mounting drives, motherboard, drive cages, etc. I had a Torx screwdriver so I didn't mind. They were much better than Philips.
One design goal of Philips screw drive is to prevent stripping the screw head. The gradual taper allows the screw driver to cam out before excessive torque damages the work.
Pretty much the only place you see Pozidriv in the US is Ikea furniture. Almost nobody realizes that it's different from Phillips, which results in some mildly frustrating experiences putting together furniture with the wrong screwdriver. I bought some Pozidriv bits just for Ikea stuff and they work much better.
Another similar situation is bicycle derailleurs. Many older Shimano derailleurs have JIS adjustment screws. They are just similar enough to Phillips that it seems like it's working, but it's very easy to damage the screw head. I have heard that they moved to Torx recently.
pozidriv practically doesn't exist outside Europe. It still requires proper down pressure which sometimes (ladders) is hard to come by.
I prefer (inner) hex for bolts and torx for screws. Torx is ok for bolts too (mostly m4/m5). Standard hex is fine for wood anchors as well. A rather important downside of torx: you can put a smaller torx driver - say T15 in T20 (and esp. T8 and in T10) - that ruins both the bit and the screw head. Hex doesn't suffer from that issue.
> pozidriv practically doesn't exist outside Europe.
I had to think for a while to remember the last time I saw a Phillips screw here in the UK. Then I remembered - it was about a year ago when I had to take something apart, and I cussed the thing out for having a screw that almost matches the screwdrivers that everyone has, and who even has Phillips screwdrivers these days anyway?
This article doesn't get into the reason why Phillips and Robertson are tapered and prone to camming out: they were designed that way to prevent too much torque from being applied when tightening by hand.
Neither parts of the statement is true for Philips: the Philips screws were borne out of a better compatibility with powered tools, and while the cam out properties have long been claimed as a torque limiter (generally in the context of assembling aluminum aircrafts before powered tools had good torque limiting), that was not part of the original 1932 patent. A later 1949 patent / refinement does make claims on that front, but those are mostly in terms of limiting damage to the screw IIRC.
I was exposed to torx wood screws about 5 years ago. I have not gone back.
Posi/cross head screws are just crap, the amount of pressure required to drive them in is tremendous.
Hex heads are ok, but still require a bit of pressure.
Torx screws can be driven in with one hand on the drill. ONE HAND. plus if youre at the top of a ladder, there is no need to push yourself off it to get the fucking screw into the wall.
I've only used them a few times. The main issue is bit/hole longevity.
They work well once, assuming you have a fresh bit. but if someone doesn't have a clutch set on the drill, then you tend to get subtle damage pretty quick.
