Drywall screws prove BETTER than my most expensive wood screws!

i used to use drywall screws all the time especially in shop related projects like workbenches and shelves and cabinets i liked them because they're cheap i could buy a box full of every size for like five bucks each and i really felt like i was equipped for anything but over time it was drilled into me by people smarter than i am and there are plenty of those that drywall screws are weak and my benches were destined to collapse into a pile of splintered two by fours and broken fasteners so as a rule i haven't been using drywall screws that much when i can lay my hand on more expensive alternative premium screws but there has always been something in the back of my mind that i just cannot get rid of my lofts years ago i built some lofts in my old workshop they're held together mostly by drywall screws the main beams are laminated together with drywall screws the joist hangers are attached to the walls with drywall screws even the ceiling ties rely entirely upon the strength of drywall screws to support what became an obscene amount of weight once i loaded them up with hardwood and they've remained full for the better part of a decade without so much as a creek now don't get me wrong i'm not advocating for using drywall screws in structural applications like that that would be reckless of me to say that you definitely should not do that i've probably been taking my life in my hands and this year i'll probably pull all that wood out of there just in case but it does make me wonder if drywall screws are as bad as the experts say after all they've been holding all that weight for so long and i've used them in plenty of other projects like benches and like i said bookcases over the years no issues at all so have i just been lucky are these things truly junk if they are then what is a better cost effective alternative because there are a lot of different screws out there and they often boast different features so i decided to do some testing of my own that focuses not just on the strength of drywall screws like other tests i've seen but how the various features found on modern screws truly affect their performance i want to see what will fail what's just a gimmick what may be worth spending a little extra on and what is just overpriced junk by the end of this video i think you may be as surprised as i was at the results particularly how little price has to do with actual value i'll be comparing five common types of screws that you can get in most hardware stores and home centers and which are commonly used in woodworking and diy projects all of them are number eights in size and they are an inch and a quarter long the zinc plated wood screws are the most expensive they're seven and a half cents each next in line are grk premium multi-purpose screws they're 6.8 cents each then comes specs premium construction screws at 4.6 cents each then standard coated deck screws at 4.3 cents each and the least expensive are the standard drywall screws at just two and a half cents each now let me quickly explain the methodology of the tests i'm not really interested for example in the type of driver each screw requires i covered the development of screwdrivers in my earlier video about screw history which i'll link to below if you missed it i think you find it very interesting suffice to say i just got torx drives when i could one of them only came in a robertson that was the drywall screw and then the only phillips i had was in the wood screw i also didn't concern myself with things like whether it could be used outdoors or in pressure treated wood because i can't test that in this video generally the box is going to say if you can use them in pressure treated wood and you should follow what the box says just like you should as regards structural applications my focus is on overall strength in terms of brittleness which can be tested and gripping power and whether any of these modern features that i see on the labels are worth the extra cost each screw's relative brittleness was first tested in the vice i'm not going to focus on this test much because there simply was no difference at all and how easily all of the screws snapped off as they approached a 90 degree bend which is way more than any screw is likely to flex in an average project so while there may be some differences in hardness from screw to screw this particular test simply didn't reveal any obvious differences what did yield useful results was the hard maple test here i drove 15 of each screw into the hardest wood i had without the benefit of any pilot holes this puts more stress on a screw than it is ever likely to see in a non-structural application this test also compared the cutting performance of each type of thread and point geometry something that most people never really think about for this hard maple test i used a cordless drill with a clutch setting that was almost all the way to the top i think it was 19 out of 21 so i could produce a significant but consistent amount of torque that allowed me to see how each screw's head design will perform independent of the strength of the steel itself after that i turned off the clutch and i did another test this time holding nothing back to see if any of the screw heads would snap off and to compare each screw's relative gripping or pulling force before the threads stripped out the holes in the hardwood all of these tests were important because different screws have different features including fluted tips two threads and head geometry again i wanted to see what was just a gimmick and what made a real difference that's why i'm using very hard wood instead of construction lumber i want to stress these screws to the max so the differences between the various features really stand out so let's begin by testing the relative strength of each screw shaft here's where the most expensive screws became the most disappointing granted without a pilot hole in such hard wood i am asking a lot from them the torque being applied is tremendous but these zinc plated wood screws snap off before they get very far into the wood at all in fact they performed so poorly that i didn't bother including them in any of the other tests i simply don't recommend them i tested the drywall screws next because i so often hear that they're pretty weak as well but while all 15 of the wood screws broke none of the drywall screws did that's quite a contrast between the most expensive and what is the cheapest fastener in the test what did happen with drywall screws was a lot of splitting between the wood fibers this is an important factor and we're going to discuss it in detail shortly none of the other screws broke in this test all were surprisingly strong despite this very hard wood and very high torque while i fully expected the premium construction screws to be up to the task as it turned out everything but those zinc wood screws took this force like a champ even the relatively cheap deck screws the greatest difference i observed in this test was how each screw's point and thread geometry affected its ability to cut its own hole without splitting the wood fibers the drywall screws have no special feature for this purpose because their intended use simply doesn't require it the result was that each screw in the line stressed the wood fibers more and more even though i staggered their positions the splits became worse as the test went on and by the end the board had just had enough it was splitting well ahead of the holes of course in the real world you wouldn't drive a bunch of screws like this in a close line together i certainly wouldn't do it in such split prone hardwood as maple without a pilot hole but remember these tests are meant to exaggerate real-world situations so any subtle differences between the various screw features will become more apparent and that's exactly what happened for example the deck screw has a fluted tip that's designed to self bore a pilot hole ahead of the threads this did make a little bit of a difference as the splitting was less severe with the deck screws but while that flute does seem to cut the fibers it does little to excavate those tiny chips from the hole and so the effects were pretty minimal the spax screws had no fluted point instead they feature uniquely serrated threads these seem to chew up the wood fibers and more effectively auger them up out of the hole which provides more clearance for the screw shaft and all but eliminated splitting even in this really hard split prone wood note how you can see more tiny chips around the spac screw heads it's no wonder they've patented that thread design however i did find the spac screws were more difficult to start in the hardwood sometimes i got really frustrated as i tried to get that relatively blunt point to bite and the extra pressure it required often made it difficult to drive the screw in straight sometimes it proved very frustrating indeed but a pro who drives thousands a day in soft wood would probably have a different experience the grk screws do have a fluted point but rather than fully serrated threads they feature a few notches stamped here and there it seems to be a hybrid between the fluted deck screw and the fully serrated spack screw and the result was somewhere in the middle as well as far as the splitting of the wood fibers is concerned as you look at the four types of screws that survive this test you might notice that their heads are set at different levels this was not intentional i used the same high clutch setting on all of them so they were driven with the same force and i didn't stop any of the screws before the clutch fully engaged this brought to the forefront some of the differences between the various head designs a drywall screw features a bugle shaped head that's designed to compress paper on a drywall sheet without tearing it the rest of the screws have conical shaped heads that are better suited for compressing wood fibers with a wedging action and even cutting those fibers depending on the head's texture it is the drywall screws flatter profile that makes it appear more deeply embedded in the surface of the maple than say the deck screw but in reality that bugle-shaped head is its weakness if i turn off the drills clutch and i try to force the drywall screw heads into the surface of the wood its flatter profile will resist some of the heads snap off others just hold on the surface until the threads strip out the fibers within the hole the deck screws on the other hand feature a large double bevel beneath the head this is supposed to ease it into the wood the steeper portion beginning to spread and compress the fibers followed by the shallower bevel which fits a common 45 degree countersink coming in behind it there are also slight ridges around the head of the deck screw to help sever some of those fibers as well these differences in head designs enable it to embed below the surface of the white oak without a pre-board countersink i drove them as deeply as i could before the threads stripped out within the hole and in one case a head snapped off the spack screws and the grk screws feature single bevel heads these may not spread the fibers as efficiently as the deck screws dual bevels but they displace less wood overall and they also feature more fiber shredding ribs the grk versions being by far the most aggressive that made a difference the spax crews struggled a bit to embed themselves in the hardwood none broke but all of them stripped out their holes before they were fully embedded below the surface the difficulty i had starting them was also a factor as few of the heads ended up sitting flat another factor in this relatively poor performance may have been that less than half the shaft of the spac screw is threaded compared to two thirds of the grk and three quarters of the deck screw the bare portion of that shaft is designed to pull two boards together so there is a reason for it but fewer threads can also mean less gripping power the grk screws did embed themselves more fully in fact i was able to sink them below the surface without stripping out the holes at all something none of the other screws could do i'm sure they would have eventually stripped if i'd forced the issue but i saw no need to try to bury them in the bench top below they certainly bored into the wood easier than all the others this might be surprising because the deck screws have slightly coarser threads and more of them so you would expect these to produce more holding force within the hole and they might if you are careful not to over drive them because it seems to be the deck screws larger head not necessarily the threads that stopped it from going deeper on the other hand the more aggressive cutting design of the grk head works along with the threads to bore into the hole without stripping the wood this is an important point any of these screws in this test will hold a massive amount of weight by virtue of the threads alone but when it comes to true holding power you have to consider these other factors that i'm testing the weaker the steel and the face of that stress the less overall holding strength you can expect the more a screw splits the wood fibers around the hole the less it can grip the wood and the easier it strips out the fibers within the hole something we just showed is directly related to head geometry the more likely the screw will be to pull out of that hole later that's why i ran these particular tests the way i did i think they brought out the subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences between modern screw features and proved that some of the things you may not have considered can have an effect upon a screw's performance so to summarize my observations drywall screws are strong enough in and of themselves for non-structural projects but they lack some important features that might otherwise make the joints stronger for example features like fluted tips and serrated threads help reduce fiber separation around the hole that may weaken a screw's grip where no pilot hole is used i also think the more aggressive the cutting geometry underneath the screw head the better even if you use a countersink bit because you will still have a chance of slightly over driving your screw and if the head can effectively sever more fibers you may unknowingly partially strip the hole and weaken your joint but perhaps the most obvious lesson is the benefits of using a pilot bit with a countersink and a drill with a clutch feature because these things can cancel out many of the special features that the more expensive screws brag about they can increase the strength of a joint even with cheap drywall screws see you next time castle doesn't just make pocket hole jigs they make pocket hole joinery machines the internal router cuts a cleaner pocket than any drill bit can with no tear out and a crisp exit the steeper angle centers the screw for a stronger joint and reduces component drift during assembly castle machines are top quality built to last and flat out perform visit their website at the link below and see the difference for yourself

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 485,478

Keywords: woodworking, stumpy nubs, tips, workbench, table saw, scroll saw, drill press, quick tip, band saw, bandsaw, lumber, hack, hand plane, sharpening, tormek, worksharp, diamond stone, water stone, wood turning, bowls, lathe

Id: I3mBvRs5Rmk

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 18 2022