Ok there's no such thing as indestructible but what's the toughest brand on the market. Despite using pilot holes and the slowest speed on my Bosch cordless, I've destroyed countless sets over the years. TIA.
You need to make sure that you are using the ratchet of the screwdriver and never letting the bit spin in the head of the screw:
Set the driver ratchet at a low torgue/ tightness and increase it only when you need to
Hold the driver very straight, inline with the screw
press the driver firmly into the screw as it turns
I know it's all obv but with care you can make the bit last a long time with less cursing.
Tim w
FWIW, hex-shafted screwdriver bits, whether PZ or PH, fit comfortable into an old-fashioned brace. With that arrangement you can apply considerable um...axial force to keep the bit in the screw head and stop it caming out and ruining the screw head and/or the bit, and you can exert a lot of torque at the same time, probably more than with a hand-held electric screwdriver.
Admittedly I tend to use such an arrangement more for removing recalcitrant screws than screwing them in, but you have to use it from the start. If you bugger the screw head with a bit using an electric screwdriver that's not up to the job or has a worn bit, then drilling out the head is often the only option left. And of course to use a B&B needs more room than an electric drill, so you may not have the space even if the B&B has a ratchet.
For "out", yes.
For "in"? Torx! Using Torx screwdrivers on wood screws is fun: just enough axial pressure to keep the head in place --hardly any-- and the rest is torque.
Thomas Prufer
The opposite of this is the flat-blade "screw head" on my old Peugeot 306 for securing the spare wheel cage to the underside of the boot. Now anyone with an ounce of common sense would make the head of this long bolt hexagonal, of the same size as the wheelnuts. But no, Peugeot do it differently. They put a very broad half-cylindrical notch in a round head, and then instruct you to use the flattened end of the wheelbrace as a makeshift "screwdriver". It doesn't work well. When I had a puncture, the threads of the bolt had rusted to the nut on the cage, and even putting all my weight on the wheelbrace to hold the "blade" into the notch, I couldn't exert enough torque to shift the rusted nut without the blade jumping out of the notch.
I actually had to call out the RAC (oh, the embarrassment, just for a flat tyre) - simply to get the cage undone. We tried WD40, axle grease, heat (being careful to shield the tyre of the spare wheel) and eventually got it to move. After that, changing the wheel was a five-minute doddle.
Learning by my mistake, I got into the habit of spraying WD40 over the thread every few weeks, and sometimes took the bolt right out and greased it liberally. I wasn't risking a repeat performance :-)
And for mayhem: use a "yankee drill" with a flat screwdriver blade. The ratio of torque to pressure is fixed by the pitch of the leadscrew, and optimized so that the blade digs deep into wood, paint, and flesh.
Thomas Prufer
Similar performance on Suzuki Carry van, even though that is a hex bolt the same as wheel nuts. IIRC I also put a length of hosepipe over the exposed threads to keep the mud off in future, after cleaning and greasing them liberally.
Oh yes, I remember those savage beasts.
*I* don't miss them.
I have one, good quality, here because it was a nicely-made tool and looking for a home with sad big eyes saying "take me home", and it cost very little, 50 Euro-Cents, and so how could I resist? It might cumminhandi as a long ratcheting screwdriver, as it can be locked in the extended position.
Thomas Prufer
I came across mine this morning. Must be thirty years old. They were OK for pozi screws but I never did like it for slotted screws. I think its the shorter version.
I bought my first one in 1961. They hadn't invented PZ screws then.
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