On Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:27:49 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:

On 07/17/11 02:44 pm, Smitty Two wrote:

I've asked before and got no good answer. Doesn't ANYBODY make a good
quality hardened phillips driver bit for power drivers for screwing
phillips head deck, etc, screws? These pieces of crap they sell for
$.75-1.00 ea on lumberyard checkout counters, where you grab a
handfull like promo popcorn cuz they're cheap Chinese ****, and most
ppl have settled for this absurd scenario. Why!?

I'd gladly pay $5-10 for a single bit that would last longer than a
hundred screws before it's useless garbage and I gotta reach for new
one like it was consumable sandpaper. Why do ppl pay hundreds for
quality power tools then settle for 88 cent table bits!? It's insane!

I'm not an advocate of cheap tools, but I've not had too much trouble
with power bits. Are you sure your bit matches the screw? Many or most
deck screws are pozidriv, not phillips.

I've never noticed that. I went down to the garage and found a couple of
boxes of them (GripRite). One wasn't marked anywhere as Pozidriv and had no
such markings on the head (no radials between the slots). The only marking on
the head was an 'H', which I assume meant that it was hardened? The other box
was Torx. ;-)

And at many of the "home improvement" stores nobody has ever heard of
Pozidriv, even though one will sometimes find them there in a set of
assorted bits. Look for bits marked "PZ" followed by a number.

I *have* noticed that. I needed a couple of Pozidriv screwdrivers at work
(production was rounding out the heads). I had to order them over the
Internet. Even the woodworking stores don't seem to carry PZ drivers.