Is there a machinist in the house?

You'd have thought that somebody would have come up with the idea of using a bit of squarre stock and a pair of pliers. Kind of funny when you think of the all the model engineers over there.

Sigh. I have a little kit with every bit known to mankind. Several Phillps, flat blades, torix, hex, several Robertson, tamper proof, security torix, etc etc just for such emergancies.

That aside, I've switched over to Roberts>

"Ken Davey" snipped-for-privacy@spammotel.com

wrt square-drive screws.

There's a piece somewhere in the Machinist's Bedtime Readers about a delivery guy who makes a stop at a machine shop. He looks astounded and says, "Gee, I didn't know you could make gears. I thought you had to buy them."

The same mentality shows here. You have to import the "foreign" bit,... instead of making four grinding wheel hits on a metal rod/shank/bit/whatever. Frank Morrison

The highest quality screw drivers we sell at work are made by Wiha in Germany. I'd say, perhaps, twelve months ago, you couldn't get "square" screwdrivers from them in any form. We have recently started to stock them. Not very many configurations available, but we're getting there.

Still waiting for their insulated line to include square...

Regards,

Robin

"Ken Davey" wrote in news:bvdopt$rlfgn$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-216732.news.uni-berlin.de:

Reminds me of the Travis Tritt song "Here's your sign" - Listen to it if you haven't heard it....very applicable in this situation.

Why am I not suprised?

Have you observed the ever increasing percentage of "men" who don't know which way to turn a screw, can't change a flat tire and haven't a clue about how to use a set of jumper cables?

I'm galls me to admit that one of my own sons still has to recite "Lefty loosey, righty tighty" when approaching a threaded fastener, and he grew up watching me fix everything but the crack of dawn and a broken heart.

Common sense isn't all that common, is it?

Jeff

I grew up watching my dad fix a lot of stuff... And all those times I noticed he was going clockwise in an attempt to loosen something... Well I knew to just look away and pretend I didn't notice for a couple of minutes until he realized what he was doing and had started turning the wrench/screwdriver/whatever the other way... Sometimes it's just better to keep your mouth shut. :D

And to quote the news article in the OP: "Though the flight was delayed more than two hours due to Tuesday's snowstorm, the 46-year-old artist was relieved when the plane finally took off, commenting later that he was 'very happy to leave Toronto with my screwdriver in hand.'

"With little time to spare, Coburn arrived in London and immediately sent the screwdriver by motorcycle to the gallery, where it was put to proper use."

Does this mean they actually allowed him to carry the screwdriver onto the plane with him in his carry on bag? If not (and I'm leaning towards not), it would add to the excitement if his baggage had been lost somewhere between Toronto and London. :)

chem

Yeah, that's right! Go to the store and ask for a Robertson driver, and they've never heard of it! Tell them, hey you got an electric screwdriver kit? Oh, sure here they are. See, right here in the 2nd row, there are the robertson driver bits! Since most of that stuff comes from China, if MY electric screwdriver has Robertson bits in the kit, so do everyone elses!

So, they COULD have goten their screwdriver if they'd just asked the right question! Guaranteed, the store had them, they just didn't KNOW they had them!

Jon

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (Fdmorrison)

I think it's past my bedtime. "Bedside" FM

Same thing. I manage to get about three pages done before the alarm clock goes off, and it's time to go to work again! I used to be able to stay up _all_ night.

Jim

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I've never known these things to be called anything but "Cabinet Screws".

Hank