2mo ago

May the torque be with you

162 comments

I feel like a + shaped screw head would be as standard as a pyramid if multiple civilizations had developed screws independently. It wouldn't be the last kind, but it would be there somewhere. Maybe even a long, long time ago.
- There are at least 3 standards for the + shape already. Phillips, Pozidrive, and Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS). They do not play well together.
  insert obligatory xkcd standards reference
  
  Don't forget Frearson/Reed & Prince!
  But wait, there's more!
  And even more!
  We only have standards so we can break'em.
  
  JIS has been obsoleted and replaced in Japanese products with the ISO Phillips bit shape. It still exists on lots of products pre 2000 though.
  
  This bugs me so much more than it should. Why do we have three different standards for + shaped screws? You know what doesn't have this problem? Flatheads. There's exactly one way to make a flathead screwdriver, and I won't be looking it up to make sure I'm right
  I see that multiple people have replied, but unfortunately reading these comments would be a form of research so I must decline
- I think a single slotted screw head would be more universal and easy. You just cut one line into the top of the screw head and your ready to go. A Philips head would need to be cut twice and once you did, you've weakened the head one degree more by removing more material
  
  You clearly haven't had to screw a flathead screw.
  Anyone that's dicked around with those little bastards starts hating life after about thirty seconds. A fastener I can screw in a without having to be perfectly in line with the shaft? Yes please! I don't care if it's a shitty Phillips screw, sign me up. I'd even take those goofy square Canadian screws. Hell, anything is better than flathead.
  I challenge you to find a screw worse to use than a flathead screw.
  
  Ohhh no... As a person who regularly builds random shit for film and television, the single slotted screw is the bane of my bloody existence. Some designers fucking love em for the aesthetic but the cam outs on them are terrible. Is it technically easier to produce? Yes, is it viable to use for construction purposes comparitively - fuck no. Every time you cam out ( lose traction on the screw) you risk accidentally damaging whatever medium you are screwing into.
  Locally there is an insane institutional preference for the Robertson screw (which is basically a square) because it doesn't cam out much, drives in well and arguably resists stripping better than a Phillips... This is believed in so much that any screw not seen by the camera is a Robby (usually size 2) while anything that is perceived by the audience is a phillips or a single slot screw. Given a choice nobody wants to handle single slots and chances are good you only find them in period specific builds or when the designer is a psychopath.
  
  Slotted screws are the proof that Satan is real.
  
  Absolutely the only benefit to slot headed screws is how easy they are to make, which is why they're what a home machinist would make when creating his own fasteners, and why any aliens out there that use threaded fasteners have probably also tried and learned to hate them.
  Most other shapes of driver aren't cut, they're stamped.
  
  I have never seen a crosshead screw cut out to the edges...

Its all fun and games until the Canadians show up.
- As an American, we made a mistake in not adopting those. Torx or whatever isn't even as good.
  
  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.
  
  Oh okay. So just like with everything else we've failed to do
- Germany has entered the chat.
  
  I've stripped more internal hex than all other types combined
  
  We have to go deeper.
- Yeah boi

Disappointed that the first comment isn't, "May the Torx be with you"
- That may have been the actual post title I was looking for.
  
  These aren’t the post titles you’re looking for… 👋

Obligatory xkcd
- Thought it was gonna be the Phillip's head strip
  
  https://xkcd.com/1474/

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

Edit: at least they didn't use Phillips screws
- Can't get more spacey screws than those. They basically look like galaxies
- That's because they were worried someone would have taken them off.

Turns out the laws of physics and geometry are the same everywhere.
- Even in fictional universes that have wizards in space with swords made of light?
  
  Yes!
- Then why would they end up with philips instead of torx?
  
  They get sick pleasure from inflicting stupid fastener design on their users?

Hey, if it works it works.
- It works, but badly. All my homies hate cam-out and love torx.
  
  It works great for it's intended purpose which is torque limiting.

Can we all agree that flathead should be outlawed and Phillips needs to get phased out with a quickness
Why are there so many fasteners 8min : https://youtu.be/5cA9bZRHpZE
- 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.
  
  Yeah it also really difficult to strip a Flathead slot.
  
  Right, field maintenance, especially when you don't have access to tools is a bit of an exception. Personally I think using take down pins for guns is the way to go for field maintenance anyway.
- Wait what should the standard be?
  
  Torx.
  
  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.
  
  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)
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  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.

Somehow, Phillips head survived.

Um, actually, those are rigid kal'dron adjustment pins used to correct focus crystal orientation.

Ironically enough other standards appeared because of the need of more torque.
- That’s the joke

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.

You'd think that they would have switched to Pozidriv.
- Why? Torx is better in every way. If you are going to change, why half ass it to Phillips 2.0
  
  Backwards compatibility
  
  You're right - Torx is definitely a better option. I just mentioned Pozidriv because people seem to love Phillips head so much for whatever reason, so Pozidriv seems like a logical increment from there.
- TIL

Bet it’s an inch screw too

No wonder the Jedi failed.

May the Philips be with you.

Where do you think we got it from?

Obligatory Babylon 5 Swedish meatballs
- 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.
  
  That reads like it's straight out of one of the Hitchhikers books

Huh always thought that was a self sealing stem bolt
- Wrong universe
  
  See that whooshing over your head its the Clear Air Turbulence.

Could be JIS.
- Thank you!

I thought it was going to say "IG-88 was a dildo."
- He certainly looks like one

Why wouldn't they? It's an efficient design, and aside from the whole force thing they seem to be working with the same physics that we are. Why wouldn't they invent philips head screws?
- This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine - it's designed purely for automation. That's why it's tapered, to allow power tools to slip out before they break. That's good for automation in the *1930s (EDIT: I've realised that in a few years it will be the 30s again and maybe I shouldn't leave this so ambiguous in light of that), not so good for hand tools or any modern tool with a torque limiter.
  You're much better off with hex or torx, or even the square driver, which is much more tolerant of imperfect handheld tool usage.
  The only reason phillips is still used is because it's ubiquitous, it's very much a historical oddity. It's okay for many tasks but unfortunately the slipping out behaviour can destroy the screws very quickly.
  https://www.ifixit.com/News/9903/bit-history-the-phillips
  I mean it's conceivable they'd come up with something similar, and it would be weird to expect a props department to find different screw heads just to be lore accurate.
  Edit: Plus it's common today, which means from a prop design standpoint it communicates the idea that it's hand-built, because just about everyone has a phillips head screwdriver, so seeing it tells you it's something you can work on. I think that's the main reason it would be there. Jedi are supposed to make their own lightsabers.
  
  A good balled hex driver is such a joy to use. Somewhat align it with the screw, and you can use it at weird angle.
- They strip like a mf.
- If you have ever used torx once in your life you can't say that Philip is great anymore.
  
  Torx is cool and all but all the touted virtues such as less cam-out go out the window if you have to drive them in at wonky angles, like tight fitting spaces. If you gotta angle the driver it's not gonna seat well at all, apt to jump and wear out your bit. And if your only T20 rolls away and falls under a deck, yuck, 10mm problems.
  Phillips has a place and that place is 'a wonky place to hold a power drill'. That said I'm a huge fan of square head because it's a happy medium between those two
- Because it's a fucking stupid design! Fuck Phillips, long live Robertson!

If it ain't broke..

A 500+ million dollar budget and you can't even take a proper picture.
- What's wrong with the picture?

I thought we got over Bricks and Screws years ago

Oh man, this is 100% real. Disney is such garbage...
- Meh, it's one of those things that's going to be around forever. I would be absolutely unsurprised if crosshead screws were still a thing in 4800 ce.
  
  You're building a light saber.
  Do you:
  A. Weld everything
  Or
  B. Drill holes and thread the holes for a bolt
  I'm sure they have some kind of crazy riveting technology. Is she installing screws because she wants to be able to easily take apart her lightsaber if needed?
- Or perhaps the Jedi are also just cooking with water.

162 comments