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Michael A. Terrell

"J. Clarke" wrote:

In article ,
says...

"J. Clarke" wrote:

In article ,
says...

Gerald Miller wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Gerald Miller wrote:

OTOH, Robertson drive fasteners are automatically held in place by the
tapered mating surfaces of the driver.

Not the ones I've seen and had to remove. Every damn one of them was
sloppy, and I burnt up a bit about every six screws because they would
wear down the corners till they just spun in the screw heads.

You must have been using a No. 1 bit in a No. 2 fastener.

No, I wasn't. I used brand new #2 Robertson bits and burnt up over a
dozen of the things at $1.59 each. They were just crap screws.

I'm curious--were you using a drill, an impact driver, or a manual
screwdriver? I used to hate Robertsons, then I got an impact driver and
found that they suddenly became much more satisfactory.

I tried impact on a few and snapped the heads off every one of them.
I used a drill with a clutch, since the damn things were five inches
long. I ran it at a slow speed, taking almost a minute to remove the
screw, if it didn't strip out, or break. In spite of what Larry said I
had the bits were fully seated, and not at an angle. I had to drive the
bit into a few of them, to get them fully seated.

If they broke that easily then I'm inclined to agree that they were crap
screws.

Were the bits that you used Robertson brand, two-piece color-coded with
the "R" marking on them? If not that might be your problem.

No color coding, but they were marked with an 'R'. The bits were
slightly tapered, as well. None of the screws survived being removed in
good enough condition to tell how they were made. All the damaged bits
and used screws were dumped into a bucket of metal shavings and short
pieces of scrap that was taken to the scrap yard over a decade ago. The
bits I have were bulk packed and now came from Northern Tool. I hope
that I never need to use one again, but I bought them just in case. I
know a lot of people who live in mobile or manufactured homes and I'm
sure I'll run into them again.

Robertson screws have a tapered recess and use a tapered bit. "Square
Drive" screws don't have a tapered recess and don't use a tapered bit.
You can drive Robertsons with a Square Drive bit but you wreck the bit
in short order. Vice versa works better but it's still not all that
great.

And historically the reason for this is that the first time Robertson
licensed their design the licensee tried to do them out of their
royalties and after that they refused to license it to anybody, leaving
the market open for clones.

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.