• snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4812·
      9 days ago

      As an American, we made a mistake in not adopting those. Torx or whatever isn’t even as good.

      • Hubi@feddit.org
        8810·
        9 days ago

        Torx is better than whatever this Canadian abomination is. You’d only put pressure on the corners in a realistic setting. These would get rounded so fast unless they are massive, like on some differentials or gearbox oil drains.

        • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          581·
          9 days ago

          This guy mechanics

          Indeed torx is so good because it attempts to maximize the surface where pressure is applied to. This is good on smaller sized bolts that are more prone to being rounded, but especially amazing when removing bolts that may have been exposed and potentially corroded

            • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              37·
              9 days ago

              Yeah, hex is very nice but torx is improvement over it.

              I have not checked on it, but I’m like 97.25% sure wood screws jumped from Philips to torx however because of corrosion resistance. Hex is very easy to round already as is on smaller sizes, but even more so if the head is exposed to elements and corroded. Of course material matters a lot, but even stainless corrodes over time.

              Torx has to be very, very bad condition for it to round, it’s more likely for the screw to snap

              Sorry for drunk rambling but I really like bolts. And bearings for what it’s worth

        • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.caEnglish
          15·
          8 days ago

          Never had or seen a stripped Robertson, they are robust AF. Don’t ask me the physics. (They go deep into the screw head because of the simple shape, maybe that has part of it. And they are tapered, it’s not just a square, so they manage to grip the bit like a mofo. You don’t cam out of a Robertson.)

          • Sludgeyy@lemmy.world
            7·
            9 days ago

            I’ve snapped so many Robertson bits in my life. Screws are fine.

            1 5/8" cement board screws

            They used to be Robertson. They switched to Torx.

            Night and day difference

            Like you said, they do grip like a mofo, and with an impact driver, the bits snap.

            I tried dozens of different brands of bits. Even paid top dollar for special Milwaukee ones.

            I was at a point where I had to pre-drill and counter sink the screws because I was breaking too many bits.

            I could probably drive a torx head one through a board

        • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
          39·
          9 days ago

          Hex already fit that niche.

          Torx was just so they could make wood screws that weren’t Robertson and it bled out from there.

          • anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            8 days ago

            Torx bits are waaaay stronger than hex. Like double the surface area and tapered to work when corroded.

            My 30 year old VW axles with hex bolts were a nightmare. The new ones are all Torx or 12pt.

            I ended to driving an oversized Torx but into the nearly stripped hex bolts to finally remove them.

  • _thebrain_@sh.itjust.works
    561·
    9 days ago

    Even in a galaxy far far away everything is still made in china

    Edit: at least they didn’t use Phillips screws

    • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
      14·
      9 days ago

      Officially, “flathead” refers to countersunk screws. Slotted screws are terrible for my purposes, but they actually do have 1 advantage. If they get mud or something caked up in the slot it’s relatively easy to use a knife or some other pointy thing to clean it out. Guns and other things used in dirty environments often use slotted fasteners for that reason.

      • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        61·
        9 days ago

        Square (Robertson) and/or torx depending on application. Square should be for everyday things and torx should be for anything mechanical, yes I know there is a big gray area in the middle there, but flat head, phillips, and hex need to go.

        • kronisk @lemmy.world
          15·
          9 days ago

          Honest question, why not torx across the board? What do square do well that’s not covered by torx?

          • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.caEnglish
            5·
            9 days ago

            Robertson is tapered, so you just have to hit the hole somewhat and it’ll guide itself in real easy. Torx is fickle to line up and orientate.

          • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            9 days ago

            The way I see it, anything with a square bit can be done by with a hand held screw driver, and anything with a torx bit should probably be torqued to a certain amount and/or be used with a screw gun. Square/Robertson bits are used super often in things like electrical panels and electronics. They are becoming pretty common for cabinetry also. I doubt you’ll see a torx screw in cabinets.

            • kronisk @lemmy.world
              2·
              8 days ago

              Thank you for replying. Robertson screws are not common in Scandinavia - at least I’ve never seen one IRL. I use torx for everything, never had an issue with hand screwing them, which is why I asked. But I’m not an expert or professional, just a home owner that tries to DIY as much as I can.

              Not having to deal with stripped screws is the biggest plus for me, I hate having to remove a Philips or flathead screw that someone else put in some hard-to-reach location that can’t be turned without breaking. (Which happens surprisingly often, actually.)

        • blackris@discuss.tchncs.de
          21·
          9 days ago

          I have never in my life seen such a screw. Hexagon is the shit here, when it isnt Phillips. Maybe coming from Ikea, I don’t know. Is this format a (popular) US thing?

          • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            9 days ago

            Ya Ikea standardized on hex because it’s cheap to mass produce. It definitely strips though.

            Torx has slowly been gaining popularity in the US for a decade or two now, but sadly Phillips is still pretty popular and hex is pretty common also, you will see the square/Robertson screws a lot in electrical panels and in cabinetry but not super common at the hardware store.

      • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        8 days ago

        Torx for anything that needs to be torqued or used with power tools, Robertson (square) for anything intended to be used with hand tools or more finer work (a screwdriver)

    • WalnutLum
      43·
      9 days ago

      I don’t get the problem with flathead, for household applications it seems the most superior because I can use literally anything in my house to drive the screw (butter knife, credit card, a housekey)

      plus almost every size of flathead screwdriver can fit in almost every size of flathead screw.

      • fallingcats@discuss.tchncs.de
        5·
        8 days ago

        You can use everything, but everything works badly. Even a fitting screwdriver will just randomly jump out after half a turn and scratch whatever you’re working on.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        7 days ago

        No offense, but you haven’t unscrewed/screwed enough slot screws if you don’t see why they’re worse in every way. The criteria for a good screw isn’t that you don’t have to have the correct tool. The bits are $0.99!

        I unscrew a single screw and whether it’s a light switch or an electronic device, I’m already annoyed. Even if you use a flathead screwdriver that fits perfectly, it will un-center and slip out, whether you use a hand bit/screw driver or a drill.

  • kamen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    9 days ago

    Ironically enough other standards appeared because of the need of more torque.

  • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
    15·
    9 days ago

    Preventing cam-out with a Phillips screw is like learning the ways of the Force. It takes patience and skill, something the Empire’s rigid Torx would never understand.

    • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
      61·
      8 days ago

      It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N’N-T’N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian ‘chinanto/mnigs’ which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan ‘tzjin-anthony-ks’ which kill cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds. What can be made of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As far as any theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of profound importance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their time, getting very angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.