Holding thin round stuff

I'm curious--were you using a drill, an impact driver, or a manual screwdriver? I used to hate Robertsons, then I got an impact driver and found that they suddenly became much more satisfactory.

He must have forgotten to seat the driver in the head and/or tried to drive a screw from a sideways angle. Neither works, as he discovered.

Have you tried another brand of driver bit? Quality varies all over the map with those things. DAMHIKT. What I hate is when the bit breaks in the screw. It can't be drilled out, but sometimes a prick punch can loosen it.

Yeah, torx rocks!

-- That's the thing about needs. Sometimes, when you get them met, you don't need them anymore. -- Michael Patrick King

These are definitely extra-soft screws, stainless steel deck screws from some overstock/closeout place. So I predrill and set the clutch light. All the other stainless screws from there have been fine; Robertson just isn't very popular around here even though the older carpenters are Canadien.

Snappy now sells quick change hex-shank tapered drill bits like the kitchen cabinet installers use.

"Michael A. Terrell" on Wed, 07 Sep 2011

Hmmm, sounds to me like a "special case" where the screws had "set up" in whatever they were sunk into, and were not going to come out easily, regardless of the drive type. I've had a few of those myself. Such an experience can color one's opinion of the product. OTOH, Robinson heads do work well for installs.

Does anyone still use slotted head screw?

That's too bad on both counts.

Huh? Which cabinet installers use tapered woodscrews? I have an unused set of HF tapered billdrit/countersinks, but they're round ended.

-- That's the thing about needs. Sometimes, when you get them met, you don't need them anymore. -- Michael Patrick King

Yes, for electrical work.

I tried impact on a few and snapped the heads off every one of them. I used a drill with a clutch, since the damn things were five inches long. I ran it at a slow speed, taking almost a minute to remove the screw, if it didn't strip out, or break. In spite of what Larry said I had the bits were fully seated, and not at an angle. I had to drive the bit into a few of them, to get them fully seated.

If they broke that easily then I'm inclined to agree that they were crap screws.

Were the bits that you used Robertson brand, two-piece color-coded with the "R" marking on them? If not that might be your problem.

Robertson screws have a tapered recess and use a tapered bit. "Square Drive" screws don't have a tapered recess and don't use a tapered bit. You can drive Robertsons with a Square Drive bit but you wreck the bit in short order. Vice versa works better but it's still not all that great.

And historically the reason for this is that the first time Robertson licensed their design the licensee tried to do them out of their royalties and after that they refused to license it to anybody, leaving the market open for clones.

No color coding, but they were marked with an 'R'. The bits were slightly tapered, as well. None of the screws survived being removed in good enough condition to tell how they were made. All the damaged bits and used screws were dumped into a bucket of metal shavings and short pieces of scrap that was taken to the scrap yard over a decade ago. The bits I have were bulk packed and now came from Northern Tool. I hope that I never need to use one again, but I bought them just in case. I know a lot of people who live in mobile or manufactured homes and I'm sure I'll run into them again.

--Once we get the bugs worked out they're low speed tachometers. Range will be from around 2 to 3,000 rpm.