On 13 Oct, 20:41, Tim S wrote:
I do, couple of thousand in fact.

Assuming that got past your SPAM filter...

When I were a lad, we had phillips and slotted, brass and steel, round
heads, countersunk and the old one inbetween in between.

Went to Screwfix with the intent of buying a couple of mega packs of general
purpose woodscrews...

Turbogold, goldscrew, spax, quicksilver...

Ow... I feel like someone just dug me out the ground (I'm 40).

So whats the best general purpose screw these days? I have two principal
uses:

Screw to wood and screw to masonary walls with plugs.

Should I just go with the screws I know and love, or are these new products
really better? I don't mind being old fashioned and drilling pilot holes
and countersinking.

Cheers

Tim

Turbogold and Spax are excellent. No predrilling in softwood required.
Even 6*100mm will go straight in with an impact driver. Most trades
people use them as first choice.

Turboultra are rather fragile, but leav a nice finish if handled
carefully.

There's a bunch of whatever to masonry fittings now that cut straight
into masonry, no plug required (but you must drill the masonry at the
diameter they specify). Look at the Spax offering and Mulitmonti.

Speed, reliability, ease of use - and barely make any difference to
overall project costs.

coughed up some electrons that declared:

Turbogold and Spax are excellent. No predrilling in softwood required.
Even 6*100mm will go straight in with an impact driver. Most trades
people use them as first choice.

OK - sounds good - I'll pick one at random.

Turboultra are rather fragile, but leav a nice finish if handled
carefully.

I don't quite understand - do you mean the heads look nice and set in the
surface of the material nicely without splintering?

There's a bunch of whatever to masonry fittings now that cut straight
into masonry, no plug required (but you must drill the masonry at the
diameter they specify). Look at the Spax offering and Mulitmonti.

While I don't think I could get my head around not doing it the "old way"
for big heavy things (I'm still brushing the worms off, remember), I might
give these a try for fixing electrical back boxes and pipe clips. I can see
the benefit there and I don't need mentally high strength.

Do they work OK in medium hard brick?

Thanks for that - just the pointer I needed.

Cheers

Tim

Tim S coughed up some electrons that declared:

coughed up some electrons that declared:

Turbogold and Spax are excellent. No predrilling in softwood required.
Even 6*100mm will go straight in with an impact driver. Most trades
people use them as first choice.

OK - sounds good - I'll pick one at random.


One thing though: without the shank and the pilot hole, do they allow the
things being fixed to pull together as the screw is tightened?

Cheers

Tim

One thing though: without the shank and the pilot hole, do they allow the
things being fixed to pull together as the screw is tightened?

If you're screwing thin to thick, and the pull-up distance is small,
then yes. The force of an impact driver helps, as does the self-
countersinking action of the screw.

However if you're pulling something into shape, best to clearance
drill the attached part.

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:32:14 -0700, wrote:

One thing though: without the shank and the pilot hole, do they allow
the things being fixed to pull together as the screw is tightened?

If you're screwing thin to thick, and the pull-up distance is small,
then yes. The force of an impact driver helps, as does the self-
countersinking action of the screw.

However if you're pulling something into shape, best to clearance drill
the attached part.

If it's decking/chipboard/roofing to metal, look at the ???* screws.
Pilot hole in the steel, clearance in the wood, self tapping and
countersink all in one shot. Saved me ages when putting a conservatory
floor on a steel frame.

* Balls. I just went to look up the name and I couldn't find them
anywhere. dead clever design - had a drill point on the end with steel
'wings' - the wings drilled the clearance hole in the wood, then snapped
off/folded flat when they got to the steel. The drill point then did a
pilot hole until the start of the self tapper hit then it pulled itself
in. Flanges under the head then self-countersunk into the chipboard and
pulled *tight*.

Anybody know what they were/are?

Turboultra are rather fragile, but leav a nice finish if handled
carefully.

I don't quite understand - do you mean the heads look nice and set in the surface of the material nicely without splintering?

Turboultra are stainless steel, so can be snapped or the heads damaged
rather more easily than turbogold or spax.

I've just remembered Screwfix Select have a "try a free box of
turbogold" offer, but I'm not sure who they're letting sign up to the
select thingy (I got a mailing about it):

https://www.screwfixselect.com/app/s...promotions.jsp



There's a bunch of whatever to masonry fittings now that cut straight
into masonry, no plug required (but you must drill the masonry at the
diameter they specify). Look at the Spax offering and Mulitmonti.


While I don't think I could get my head around not doing it the "old way"
for big heavy things (I'm still brushing the worms off, remember), I might
give these a try for fixing electrical back boxes and pipe clips. I can see
the benefit there and I don't need mentally high strength.

Do they work OK in medium hard brick?

Hmmm - the direct masonry fixing are more for the big stuff - this is
the smallest I could find:

http://www.screwfix.com/search.do;js...=12531&x=0&y=0

It seems Screwfix has dropped the Spax frame anchors - pity, they were
excellent.

This is what I use for the big stuff:

http://www.screwfix.com/cats/101217/Fixings/Multi-Monti

I've used multimonti in concrete, so hard brick should be no problem.

coughed up some electrons that declared:


While I don't think I could get my head around not doing it the "old way"
for big heavy things (I'm still brushing the worms off, remember), I
might give these a try for fixing electrical back boxes and pipe clips. I
can see the benefit there and I don't need mentally high strength.

Do they work OK in medium hard brick?

Hmmm - the direct masonry fixing are more for the big stuff - this is
the smallest I could find:


http://www.screwfix.com/search.do;js...=12531&x=0&y=0


Hmm, pity...

Thanks for the answer though

Cheers
Tim

wrote:


This is what I use for the big stuff:

http://www.screwfix.com/cats/101217/Fixings/Multi-Monti

I've used multimonti in concrete, so hard brick should be no problem.

I think it might have been you who put me on to Multi Monti's in the first
place. Incredible fixings.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

It's probably worth mentioning for newcomers that you need to be
tooled up - sds drill, correct diameter bit (no substitutions) and
ideally an impact driver to place them - to gain the full benefits of
speed and ease of use.

In article
,
wrote:
Turbogold and Spax are excellent. No predrilling in softwood required.
Even 6*100mm will go straight in with an impact driver. Most trades
people use them as first choice.

I'll take issue with that. They'll still split a floorboard - same as any
other without a clearance hole.
Other thing is if you use these without a clearance hole they won't clamp
up as tight.

--
*A woman drove me to drink and I didn't have the decency to thank her

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.