Why aren't all screws pozidrive?

Ooh err missus.

In message , Lieutenant Scott wrote

I was attempting to fit a couple of cheap "made in China" TV sockets today. In each socket, 4 screws in total and 3 different styles of cross heads.

Designed by someone who has never had to fix 6/7mm coax cable to a wall socket.

Builders in these parts seem to be adopting screws with a square hole (don't know what they're called). They allow very high torque to be applied.

Robertson screw I think ...

Robertson - standard in Canada, I'm told.

ple still using straight ones? =A0Eg in sockets.

looks

NT

Always grease the shaft.

At least they were crossheads.

Is the shaft of the screw equally strong? I've snapped screws by applying too much torque.

still using straight ones? Eg in sockets.

could kill.

like one day all prison officers will be Poles

Oh kind of, it's an age thing and I'm young enough to remember slotted but it's a bit prissy (in me too).

Torx (or less so Allen) look better than than slotted to me, although it's a bit context dependent.

Even more annoying ius when they are cross haed of inderterminate type ... no extra x so they they be phillips ... yet angle is wrong and Phillipos drivers simply cam out.

As to why we won;t go all Pozi ... simple, US uses choses not to use Pozi.

It's easier if you take the wall away.

Yes, they don't seem very common here - it's all Phillips for normal work, and Robertson or Torx for anything that needs something a bit more heavy-duty. Or at least, that's what I've found on the DIY side of things, anyway.

It makes sense to me though - there's no point throwing another standard into the pot when what you have covers all bases.

cheers

Jules

ws - what's the big idea with

Reed and Prince is one sufficiently different (thinner) from a Philip's to warrant a seperate driver and there was another which was like the pozi dimensionally but without the gripper and this could be made from a Philip's driver by filing back. I came across another simple cross head "common" design in electrical and cabinet work in which the blade thickness of the driver narrowed to the edge of the screw head but can't remenber the name of this one either.

Sometimes it's just a truncated philips head that is required, touch the end of the driver with a grinder.

GKN have the rights to it.

When using quality screws and bits/screwdriver of the correct size, they do not chew up.

Lieutenant Scott :

Screws on electrical terminals generally have slotted heads. Perhaps someone can explain why. Similarly they generally have very fine threads

- I don't know whether there's a connection .

I blame the screwdriver makers myself. I actually never saw a socket head or posi screw till I was at least 25.. The correct screwdriver for the slot used to help a lot though. Brian