Any question answered...

What's wrong with Phillips head and what do you recommend instead? I still get frustrated with the single slotted screws in most of my dad's stuff.

An estate would carry all of your people/dog in comfort with better fuel economy and you could chuck a roof box on for occasional camping trips

Torx are harder to fuck up, tool has better engagement.

That’s similar to our current set up (verso has lots of room, but not quite estate room). Problem about roof box is storage - I’ve got nowhere to keep it. I’ve got a roof bag but it’s a massive pain in the arse

A forest green Volvo 760 was my weapon of choice.

Torx are harder to fuck up, tool has better engagement.

The flexible engagement of Phillips and JIS is a design feature to prevent over torquing.

Torx is fine but in the hands of someone who thinks it's ok to put 100nm in to a small to medium fixing it's a disaster. That includes a badly calibrated robot ;)

I am not a robot, I can choose pictures that contain traffic lights.

Hah yeah, sometimes I win at that game too.

Transporter chat- I could bring myself to replace my nice estate car with a poverty spec van, so replaced it with a larger estate car, for less than the cost of a Transporter.

...but also easier to strip whatever you’re driving the fixing into as a result.

The common pozi-drive head is designed to cam-out when over-torqued and is a better fit for most wood fastening use cases. Doesn’t look as cool as a Torx tho...

Pozi-drive is my general screwhead of choice - and seems to be the most widely available in shops. I've never really considered Torx for general use. Phillips looks a bit cleaner to my mind but less easy to use. Hadn't realised the 'can't over-torque' thing was a design feature.

I’ve bought a wheels mfg push in adapter to run a Shimano crank in a CAAD12 bb30a frame. Since it’s asymmetrical, I got the BBright adapter which should work on bb30a too. One side adapter is thinner than the other and it comes with a load of shims to take up any slack in the crank after fitting
Anyway, after fitting the push in adapters, there’s still nearly 10mm of axle left open to the air so I go and get the shims and they’re all 30mm ID. I’ve checked on their website and it says included are some 24mm washers
https://wheelsmfg.com/tech/PDF/BBRIGHT-SHIM.pdf
I do have 11 washers as per the “included” but they’re all the exact same ID (30mm)
Am I missing something or is it a dud?
They go on the outside of the adapter ie on the crank axle so they should really be 24, not 30

Hadn't realised the 'can't over-torque' thing was a design feature.

It isn't, that's an urban legend. Pozidrive was designed to be more resistant to cam-out than Phillips, but cam-out is a bug rather than a feature in all the common screw heads.

Pozidrive

Pozidriv

There is nothing wrong with Philips per se. Drywall screws work perfectly fine for example. The issue is with torque delivery. Crosshead screws will naturally cam the screwdriver out if the torque is too high. This can actually be a design feature to stop the over torquing of screws and prevents the fixing snapping. Torx or square drive screws will transfer the torque much more efficiently from driver to fixing than a crossheaded alternative, which is useful in some applications but will also increase the chance of breakage.

The main issue is the large variance in crosshead screw types, and minor differences between types mean that if you don't have the correct screwdriver, or if the fixing is poorly made it can make using the screws difficult/impossible. Very subtle changes in the dimensions can mean that delivering any torque without knackering the head of the screw is almost impossible.

There's generally the right screw for the job, and getting that right usually solves a lot of the problems. Torx are great for smashing in, but they're also a pain when the bit size changes so much between screw sizes.

It isn't, that's an urban legend.

Really? Well, fuck.

Fwiw Wikipedia thinks increased cam out was a design intention.

Wikipedia thinks increased cam out was a design intention

Where? In the main article on drive heads it says this about Phillips:

The design is often criticized for its tendency to cam out at lower torque levels than other "cross head" designs. There has long been a popular belief that this was a deliberate feature of the design, to assemble aluminium aircraft without overtightening the fasteners. Extensive evidence is lacking for this specific narrative, and the feature is not mentioned in the original patents. However, a 1949 refinement to the original design described in US Patent #2,474,994 describes this feature.

Since cross head was original devised to avoid the cam-out which was plaguing slot heads, it seems improbable that the earliest designs deliberately included cam-out as a feature. The inclusion in an update would not be the last instance of a discovered bug being sold as a feature🙂

Bug or feature is a bit irrelevant now though. It’s a characteristic that commonly informs the choice/usage.

My ham-fistedness means my main bug with slot heads is how often I slip around and out of them, usually in the direction of my other hand or some delicate finish.

Ratchet screwdrivers might help with that.

Standard tbh. Buying good quality flat head screwdrivers will help. Especially ones with etched contact surfaces for better grip in the slot. Goes for all screwdrivers really - the right bit type, of decent quality makes the whole thing a world easier.

It’s a characteristic that commonly informs the choice/usage.

The main driver is whatever you have in the parts bin🙂

For production work, I'm pretty sure nobody relies on driver cam-out for torque limiting.

My ham-fistedness means my main bug with slot heads is how often I slip around and out of them, usually in the direction of my other hand or some delicate finish

Nobody likes protecting the area around a slot head more than gunsmiths, so for handy hints on avoiding a visit from Mr Bozo, watch gunsmithing vids, although it comes down to what @nefarious said; use a well made example of the right tool.

relies on driver cam-out for torque limiting.

Perhaps. But if I am getting cam out, it indicates something’s wrong. A lot easier to snap torx screws that you’re ragging in with an impact driver compared to pozi. And cam out is preferable to dealing with snapped screws!

cam out is preferable to dealing with snapped screws!

If you fuck the head up enough by camming out, you're still going to be engaged in headless screw extraction at some point 🙂