Phillips bits

[phillipsbitssuck]

Having recently moved to France from Canada, i now have to put up with the poorly designed Phillips screw system. Canada uses a square drive system ( Robertson) The biggest advantage of the Robertson screw is that it will stay on the screwdriver/driver bit, this gives you back your other hand (Left or Right). Let me say that another way, the Robertson system gives you an extra hand, It's like using two hands to put a Phillips screw in and being given a third hand, so in essence by moving here Phillips has taken away my left hand as i now need it to hold their badly designed screw. Can anyone tell me how i can get my hand back? Thanks

 

[Rorschach]

I think you will find France uses Pozidrive.

Anyway magnetic holders are very common and work well.

 

[Myfordman]

Furthermore if you don’t understand and recognise the difference between Phillips and pozidrive recesses then you will continue to have problems.

 

[DBT85]

Torx is your other option.

 

[Inspector]

I understand your dislike of Philips and the not much better Posidrive but if you really want to be frustrated go back in history and try the Ried and Prince screws. They were the cam out kings of all the screws I ever worked with. Robertson is still my preferred.

Pete

 

[worn thumbs]

I'm no fan of Philips heads but then I encounter very few.It gets more confusing if you play with Japanese motorcycles because they have JIS screws which look a lot like a Philips but aren't the same as.The whole topic can be quite confusing since lots of fastening companies have tried to develop a better mousetrap ,or avoid paying licensing fees,for a similar product.A fairly thorough explanation is here: https://www.instructables.com/id/When-a ... -Phillips/

 

[Phil Pascoe]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Torx is your other option.

Not much use for existing pozi/Phillips screws, though.

 

[Rorschach]

I understand your dislike of Philips and the not much better Posidrive but if you really want to be frustrated go back in history and try the Ried and Prince screws. They were the cam out kings of all the screws I ever worked with. Robertson is still my preferred.

Pete

Going to have to take issue with you there, pozidrive is far superior to Phillips and is my prefered screw type, torx etc are good when new but when full of grime and paint they are awful to work with, pozi handles much better in these situations, not to mention that with just glance I know exactly whether I need PZ1, 2, 3, or 4, whereas torx are much more subtle.

 

[woodbloke66]

Furthermore if you don’t understand and recognise the difference between Phillips and pozidrive recesses then you will continue to have problems.

Agreed. I believe Philips screws were first used in the American car industry back in the 30's and are deliberately designed to tightened down to a specific (and fairly light) torque before they 'cam out'. Even so, they're frustrating to use and Pozidrive are only IMO marginally better.
For my wonga, I like the Torx drive screws but they can be driven quite easily too far into the wood and it's very difficult (but not impossible) to cause 'cam out' - Rob

 

[Phil Pascoe]

"The design is often criticized for its tendency to cam out at lower torque levels than other "cross head" designs. There has long been a popular belief that this was a deliberate feature of the design, to assemble aluminium aircraft without overtightening the fasteners. Extensive evidence is lacking for this specific narrative, and the feature is not mentioned in the original patents. However, a 1949 refinement to the original design described in US Patent #2,474,994 describes this feature."

 

[Garno]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives

I didn't realise there was so many differing screw types.

Today I have been further educated thank you

Gary

 

[yetloh]

I switched several years ago to Torx - readily available and far superior to either Phillips or Pozi.

Jim

 

[Richard_C]

Ask me in 10 years or so. I like torx on cars and bikes, not so sure for some uses. Yesterday I replaced some rotting decking. The posidrive screws I put in 10 years ago came out fine with an impact driver. The odd head needed clearing out with a pointy thing.

The new decking screws were torx, they went in fine. But I wonder, 10 years outdoors under trees will the head fill up with crud and stop the bit going in? Being straight sided, clearing might be harder.

Will let you know in 2030 if I can.

 

[pcb1962]

A tiny blob of Blu-tack in the centre of the screw head will hold it onto the screwdriver, I have to do this when reattaching my radiator covers to the wall through a little slot from 8 inches away.

 

[thetyreman]

the quality of the bit makes a difference, I got myself a wera screwdriver and bit set recently and should have gotten them years ago, also not a huge fan of phillips screws either, I prefer PZ, for some reason I love hex bolts, the ones where the hex is actually inside the screw head indented.

 

[phillipsbitssuck]

Thank you for all your help.
With the modern day impact drivers I'm not having any trouble driving Posidrive screws in with Phillips bits, and whilst I understand that there are magnetic/slide guide holders for these types of screws (Problematic and dodgy at best) I will tell you that once you have tried Robertson screws you'll wonder what these other designers were thinking.
Do you think it's possible for Phillips or Posidrive to make a screw and driver system that has sufficient engagement to hold onto the screw and as such free up that other hand.

 

[worn thumbs]

Lots of us use magnetic screwdriver bits and that particular problem just goes away.

 

[owen]

If you use the correct size bit then pozi and Phillips screws stay on easily? You've obviously got something wrong, either driving pozi screws with Phillips bits or vise versa.

 

[thetyreman]

poster has got to be a troll user name 'philips bits sucks' might be a clue whilst promoting them at the same time, kind of weird and conflicting :lol: