My #0 Phillips Screwdrivers are different sizes...

[dknguyen]

Im staring here at two #0 screwdriver from two sets bought in North America, and third #0 phillips driver from Germany...and the #0 from Germany has a tip that looks to be the same size as the #1 tip from the North American sets....????

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Are you confusing Philips and Posidrive?.

 

[dknguyen]

Don't think so, because I know these German ones are Phillips. The only way that would happen is if all the cross-head jeweler sized drivers I have just all happen to be Pozi-Drive.

 

[HiTech]

sounds odd... not much purpose in numbering them if they're going to be different sizes then, right? That's like stamping a 10mm socket with 3 different values yet it still measures 10mm..... or three 10mm stamped sockets that have various internal dimensions!!!

 

[gerty]

There's also a 'Reed Prince' that looks like a phillips..

 

[zevon8]

It may be a JIS standard ( Japanese ) driver. They are slightly larger, and blunter , not actually a philips, but a similar cross-drive design. Actually a better one BTW, if you have the right tools for them.

Doing service work on Japanese electronics, mechanical parts, etc, you really need the JIS drivers unless you want to ruin the recess on the fastener.

 

[HarveyH42]

Bought in the USA, doesn't mean manufactured in the USA. We tend to import a bunch of crap tools and such... For me, I figure as long as it gets the job done.

 

[mechie]

Size matters ?

...and the #0 from Germany has a tip that looks to be the same size as the #1 tip from the North American sets....????

Is it possible that America has done it again ? ...
miles are different
gallons are different
wire gauge is different (SWG versus AWG)
a size 10 dress is different (not that I still wear them - honest !)
football is different
English is different
rounders is the same but you call it baseball ?

just teasing ...

 

[dknguyen]

I'm in Canada so no offense taken . I prefer km and litres to miles and gallons...I kinda hate the wire gauge thing too as well as screw sizes, bleck. Go metric!

But, yeah, Wiha told me they made their drivers to phillips standard.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I'm in Canada so no offense taken . I prefer km and litres to miles and gallons...I kinda hate the wire gauge thing too as well as screw sizes, bleck. Go metric!

But, yeah, Wiha told me they made their drivers to phillips standard.

Philips screws seem very rare these days, and have been for years, generally crosshead screws are Posidriv rather than Philips.

A Posidriv screwdriver is much squarer ended than a Philips, and a 0 point Posidrive is considerably larger than a 0 point Philips - it still sounds to me that you're confusing the two?.

 

[HiTech]

Phillips screws may be very rare in your shires but here in the states they abound by the bazillions! The butterfly and Torx heads seem popular in the auto industry these days. Anymore, an American automotive mechanic needs a full complement of tools to interface slotted, Phillips, Torx, Butterfly, Square-drive and of course, hex head. That can add up to a costly set of tools and one large-azz chest to store them in.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Phillips screws may be very rare in your shires but here in the states they abound by the bazillions! The butterfly and Torx heads seem popular in the auto industry these days. Anymore, an American automotive mechanic needs a full complement of tools to interface slotted, Phillips, Torx, Butterfly, Square-drive and of course, hex head. That can add up to a costly set of tools and one large-azz chest to store them in.

You don't mention Posidriv in that list?, are you confusing Posidriv and Philips? - Posidriv pretty well replaced Philips a couple of decades ago.

 

[dknguyen]

Hmmm...I don't think I've ever seen a pozi-drive screw or driver unless which I was looking for one (which I never have).

Pozi-drives screws have cross etchings around the slot right? I've never seen those on any screw I've had. Unless you are implying that every screwdriver and/or screw around me is Pozi-drive without me knowing it.

I believe you can interchange either pozi-drive or phillips drivers with the other kinds of screws, but it's one way only...I forget which driver is interchangeable with which screw.

How can you identify a pozi-drive driver from a phillips driver? And how do you differentiate screws? I believe pozi-drive has some extra ethings or markings around the slot while phillips has none.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Neither fit each other very well, Philips were mainly used in the 70's and 80's, then Posidriv took over - easy to tell from the screwdrivers, Philips have a fairly sharp point, and Posidriv have a fairly flattened point.

Interesting webpage at **broken link removed** which give the impression that the USA lagged behind again, and perhaps continued to use Philips screws? - Philips themselves actually switched to Torx, probably because Posidriv won the cross-head battle?.

 

[HiTech]

We have Posidrive too but Phillips is still very popular here.... perhaps because Chinese goods are loaded with them and we import more goods from them than all the grains of sand on all of the world's beaches!!

 

[zevon8]

It may be a Posidrive, but it may also be either a Frearson ( Reed-Prince as mentioned above ) or it may be a Japanese Industrial Standard #B 1012:1985, which is very similar to the Posidrive, but has no small squre recess in the middle. The JIS is a clean, sharp cornered recess, that won't cam-out like the curved cornered original Philips.

My money is still on the JIS style, since it will work in JIS fasteners ( duh,) and Posidrive, and plain Philips. Not so with the others.

 

[dknguyen]

I don't know...the one I know is phillips was made in Germany and all the other ones are just "generic" crossheads. It's hard to believe they would be anything other than phillips...maybe generics means messed up sizes too?

I think I saw a few Pozi-Drives a long time ago when I was real little. How visible is the square in the center of the cross on a Pozi-drive? It was significant enough so that I thought it was designed so that a robertson and phillips could be used (similar to some slotted heads that have a square so you can also use a robertson).

 

[zevon8]

Basically, the Philips drivers have either a curved fillet at the place where the two lines meet, not a clean 90 degree meeting at the corner.

Everything else is either a clean 90 degree corner, or has a small outward step. It can often come down to what quality of machines the manufacturer has in their plant, or how they machine the ends.

The combo screws are just that, useable with either a philips or a robertson driver. This lets them sell the product in the USA and Canada. Robertson square recess drivers are not as common in the USA as in Canada. This feature is very common on electrical wiring devices such as outlets, light switches, etc.

 

[spuffock]

I was looking for a conical-point driver to fit all those conical-hole screws there seem to be about today, but all I get is odd looks whenever I try to buy one.

 

[Paul Obrien]

Pozidrive drivers have a parallel blade and philips(yes one L) have a tapered blade. If you try to use a philips in a pozi head it slips as does a pozi used in a philips head. Being constantly armed with a pozi I can say I rarely meet a philips even though nearly every cross-head screwdriver sold is a philips.