So... no one asked me, but...

Karl and Mike (drums) spoke highly of Spax for some time, and I bought some to try out on a project a couple of years ago. Like all fasteners, they do some things better than others, but overall they have turned out to be a great addition to the repair kit arsenal.

They are VASTLY superior quality to the crap in the little plastic bags as they have sharper threads making them easy to drive, the screws down break down the body (and on occasion have to be drilled out of a failed driving attempt), and the heads don't twist off. And they even give you a driver.

The "no drill screw" has been around as long as I can remember, but seemed to hit its stride with he advent of drill driving around 35 or so years ago.. The concept is so easy it is silly. When you drive a screw without a pilot hole, you move the fibers of wood from side to side by brute force. It takes a good screw and a good driving apparatus to drive screws into harder woods without a pilot hole as the friction and pressure on the screw (and the driver) can make it a hard task in itself.

A screw with a cutter milled/stamped into it handles things differently. The head of the screw is inaccurately viewed as a "drill" when it is more of a shredder or tearing feature. It rips the fibers of wood apart, separating them from one another and cuts the friction on the screw while driving down immensely. The cutter is smaller than the overall width of the threads so the bit of the screw is not diminished, and in fact is much better than a screw driving into a pilot hole of the wrong dimension. Since most people don't know how to select the correct bit size for a pilot hole, this is a good thing followed by good results.

And it really cuts down on the time and effort to drive screws. Using Spax, I drill about 1/2 (literally) of the pilot holes I used to when making repairs. Never had a Spax screw fail (!?!??), never broke a shaft, never tore a head off. I did put so much pressure on a 3" Spax when driving into some ancient plywood (laminated to about 2" thick when the house was built in the very early 70s) and the shaft bent under the pressure from my impact driver. I was very impressed with how strong they actually are.

So, Spax is good. I use them on everything I can, and although I used other screws besides Spax for years, I quit buying that chrome plates crap in teh little bags 20 years ago. I only use them for light loads where appearance is a factor. The hole cutter on Spax good, properly designed and actually works as it should. I always keep them around and use them generously in repair work.

Robert