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Cake day: June 6th, 2023

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  • You really don’t want to use stainless tools as they will plastically deform

    They are made specifically for stainless fasteners.

    You’ll frequently find them in the toolbags of aerospace professionals and industrial electricians and they are really the only folks that deal with a lot of stainless fasteners.

    Bicycle and motorbike folks have lots of stainless hardware, too. And lots of time you’ll see folks blame JIS/Phillips on ruining their fasteners, but sometimes it’s just because they’re using toolsteel tools on stainless fasteners.


  • If it is posidriv, you must use posidriv and you can’t use posidriv with a conventional Robertson/Phillips/JIS.

    Uh…you can use pozidriv or Robertson tools on pozidriv fasteners without issue… I think it’s the only standard that has cross-compatibility with another standard like that.


  • Higher-end bike parts might be the one application a home DIYer might encounter stainless steel hardware.

    Stainless hardware is generally pretty uncommon, but most common in things like commercial kitchen equipment, aerospace and industrial machine panels.

    In those industries, the pros know and carry specific stainless steel tools, because using normal tool-steel tools will destroy the hardware.

    tl;dr Phillips, pozi or JIS, you might just end up shredding the softer stainless bicycle hardware with your harder tools.


  • Torx’s highest-in-class leverage without camming out gives it superiority in some applications (eg impact-rated deck screws), but if you had to choose one fastener head for everything, posidriv is it.

    Torx is not self-centering, and therefore inappropriate for many tasks including anything not hand-assembled. It is also susceptible to stripping out after rusting.





  • Phillips was designed to be simple to cut and self-centering, so it could be used on assembly lines. It exploded in popularity just as mass manufactured goods were becoming popular purchases.

    Later styles like square, Hex (cut) fasteners, or 12-point (both types) or Torx can create higher torque without slipping but are not centering the way Phillips is.