Spoiler
Probably at the hardware store picking up more Phillips head screws.
This physically hurts to look at.
Now it’s time to turn it into a flathead screw with a dremel!
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.
I’ve learned recently, by buying pozi head screwdrivers, that they’re not so bad. But it is unnecessary. Torx or Robertson please.
Robertsons are the Pinnacle screwhead. Torx and hex are also acceptable
Not Hex, I’ve stripped those a few times.
Yeah, hex is only a few obtuse angles away from being a circle. And that means it strips into a circle surprisingly easily.
I’ve found a couple that just didn’t seem to be snug enough from the start. Like 6 hex screws on this bike trailer thing. 5 of them fit a 6mm hex wrench perfectly, but on one it just spins and the next size up was too big. Either it wasn’t to spec or it warped at some point or something. I think other fastner heads would be more forgiving in this regard.
I’ve seen these in Australia but they’re not popular. Until a moment ago I thought they were for some specific arcane application.
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.
- Philips in impact drivers is a sin.
No doubt, but in my own amateurish experience, the only way I can deal with PH is by using a power tool at very low speed while also applying pressure on the screw to prevent slippage (ideally one that also lets you set the torque).
People assume their drivers last forever. Just a tiny bit of tip damage and they’re grind up any screws.
I had honestly never even considered this possibility…
The cam out is a feature not a bug for when these were invented. They were made well before we had electric torque control cheaply and easily, so assembly lines developed Phillips to control torque using the driver and fastener. It’s literally designed to cam out on its own at a given torque setting.
AFAIK, this is a myth. The original patents don’t include the tapering, and someone else in the comments quoted the relevant parts from Wikipedia.
Nevertheless, the tendency of the Phillips screw to cam out easily was later found to be advantageous when used with early power tools, which had relatively unreliable torque-limiting clutches. In this context, cam-out helped protect the screw, threads, and driving bit from damage caused by excessive torque.[4]: 85–86 A follow-up patent in 1942 further refining the Phillips screw design describes this feature and argues that if screw-driving clutches were perfect, a screw recess with zero vertical contact angles (and thus no axial cam-out force) could be utilized. However, it noted that such designs had proven unsatisfactory on assembly lines, as the driving bits would not disengage in time to prevent damage.[5
You’re right it wasn’t originally designed for it but later patents and iterations on the Phillips head driver specifically designed it in which is where I think the confusion comes from. I had always heard it was originally designed that way but I guess not.
The one on the right is actually “Pozidriv” (PZ), which is a little better than regular Phillips at least.
Get a Step Bit. Then drill into the screw head until it pops off. I deal with contractors that over torque bolts on a regular basis.
Do they make those in a reverse direction so once it gets a bite it can just unscrew?
No, this is not the intended use for this type of bit.
You can get screw removing bits, which are basically that.
Help me step-bit, I’m stuck and stripped!
If I were a senator, I would make the Torx head a mandatory industry standard, and phase out Philips and proprietary screws in commercial products over ten years. Furthermore, introduce a mandatory minimum quality material to be used in its manufacture so it doesn’t rust or corrode.
screw that
Using well made screwdriver bits, replacing them when worn. Never had a ph head stripped since I started doing that. I’ve more Robertsons stripped in that time. In fact I’ve grown to dislike Robertson.
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.
Phillips is meant to slip, on purpose. It is designed so factory workers in the past, who used manual drives, could quickly assemble things without over torquing the screws. Just go firm and continuous until the thing slips, then switch to the next step, if you have to use force to avoid slip, you are doing too much. It was simple and easy. Pozidrivs are meant to withstand and impart way much more torque, but, they are supposed to be used with a torque limited electric drive. So assemblers, and even robots, can do the job fast and to exact torque specifications. The result is that people use PZ drives on PH screws and immediately obliterate them, because the drive has too much grip. While the PD drive fits PZ screws but won’t grip and will slip much more, causing a ton of damage to both screw and drive. It is not entirely the material’s fault. Using the wrong drive or choosing the wrong screw head is what usually leads to failures.
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.
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.
Even worse is JIS, where it seems that its explicit and singular goal was to make a screw that would be instantly obliterated the moment a Phillips driver touched it. Fun fact, JIS drivers work far better on Phillips than Phillips drivers do, and I’ve yet to strip one since using JIS drivers almost exclusively
i love how the head in the before picture is ALREADY stripped
Stripped for Your pleasure!
And half the time it came from the factory like that.
If it comes from the factory with such pronounced corners, chances are its a Phillips/Square drive combo. In which case you can use a square drive bit which will drive it without slipping (IIRC square drive has similarly high torque before cam-out as torx). There are a ton of different kinds of screw drives though, the phillips-adjacent ones are under cruciform here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
How in the world does such a comprehensive article not include JIS? It looks like it was once included but then it was removed due to poor citations. Wtf why was it not added back? It is very distinct from Philips and if you use a Philips driver on a JIS screw, it strips the shit out of it.
JIS screws are denoted by a small dimple in one of the corners of the + on the screw.
Get a drill!! You can do this twice as fast with half the effort
Better make it an impact driver, just to be sure.
Torx 25 is my favorite
I had this happen to me installing a PC fan. I don’t think I was able to get that screw in fully because of it.
I have impact-driven thousands of screws into wood in my back yard in the past 18 months. Over 1,000 of them were 6" (15cm) big guys, along with tons of 2.5" (~6cm) and 3.5" (9cm).
Every last one was Torx / hexalobular / 6-point. When I bought hardware that came with free phillips head screws, I threw that shit away and used my own.
The “feature” that philips head brings to the table makes it worse for just about every use case other than “I own exactly one screwdriver and never want to get another one.”
Torx doesn’t HAVE to be the alternative. There are many good screw designs out there. It’s just that where I live, that’s the non-philips choice that dominates the market. Every store has a variety of choices for torx-driven construction screws.
PH itself is not even that terrible - but companies use the cheapest metal you can find to make the worst possible screws with it
In Canada it’s Robertson for construction which is literally a square hole. It works phenomenally well in my opinion especially with drills with torque cutoffs. The only benefit of Phillips or posidrive is the automatic cam-out to control torque, which we don’t need anymore with modern tools.
