What kind of screw should I use? Woodworking Basics

0:00 guys if you've ever been to the fasteners section of a hardware store or home center you know how intimidating this experience can be at times you may only need a few screws but what kind should you get there's a bazillion different kinds of screws and there's there's no way i can cover them all so in this basics video i'll give you an overview of the most common types of screws and what you'll need for woodworking side note if you're lucky enough to live near a hardware store an actual hardware store not just a big box home center hello service help go there the people who work there are often highly skilled and can give you expert advice on what kind of fasteners are best for your project plus you can usually just buy

0:45 a single screw if you need to hey real quickly if you enjoy this woodworking basic series please take a moment to subscribe to woodworking premier mortals and be sure to click on the notification bell so you'll be notified every time i post a video now let's dig in so this video is just barely going to scratch the surface on all the different types of screws available but don't worry for woodworking you can narrow it down to just a few choices and if you don't want to sit through this entire video but i really hope you do because it's filled with lots and lots of good information about well screws here's my bottom line recommendations for woodworkers i highly recommend using premium or multi-purpose screws such as spax get the flat headed screws the ones with the tapered heads for countersinking if you

1:32 can use square or star drives they work way better and will save you a lot of frustration if you can't find them or don't want to spend the extra money phillips are okay but your driver will probably slip off the head and that gets aggravated the only screws i like to keep on hand at all times in my shop are number eight one and a quarter inch star head screws these are by far the ones i use the most i want to point out that i don't really use a lot of screws in woodworking usually i use wood glue which is stronger and leaves no visible fasteners the downsides to using glue is that you have to wait for it to dry and once you've assembled something you can't take it apart i often use screws for

2:17 shot projects and jigs with these i'm not concerned as much about the appearance as much as i love the time saving that screws allow me screws are also used to hold together things where expansion and contraction of the wood can be an issue a common use is to attach a table top to a base the screws will usually be set into a slot allowing the wood to move as the humidity changes for some projects that are sort of in the middle ground between making an heirloom dresser and a workbench i like to use pocket screws they're great for making cabinets and other case work they make assembling these types of projects say a bed frame much easier and quicker and of course you want to position the pocket holes on the undersides or backs of the projects

3:02 where they won't be visible if you want to learn more about pocket hole joinery click up here okay so there's no real agreement on this but personally i view a bolt as a fastener that goes all the way through two materials with a nut attached to one end while a screw pulls two pieces together and only the head of the fastener is visible but i can think of plenty of exceptions such as machine screws i also personally tend to think of a bolt as a fastener that you tighten with a wrench again there's plenty of exceptions and i'll bet people are going to be arguing about this in the comment section yup screws people will argue about screws anyways this is just the way i tend to

3:49 think of these very similar kinds of fasteners but it doesn't really matter what they're called so let's move on there's a common misconception among non-woodworkers that we use a lot of nails and really nothing could be further from the truth in the 10 years of projects on this channel i don't think i've ever used nails in a project other than for maybe decorative purposes sometimes i use brads for holding boards together while the glue dries but never as a sole means of assembly let's face it nails are a pain to hammer in they can bend and you can easily mar the surface of your project with the hammer's head not only that but they don't hold nearly as well as screws and can work themselves loose

4:36 a screw is made up of four components the tip the shank the threads and the head screws used for woodworking will have a pointed tip to help guide the screw into a precise location self drilling screws have a split point that cuts into the wood like a drill bit other screws such as machine screws have no point the threads of a screw wrap around the shank together this is the part that drives into the material the threaded part of some screws stops before it gets to the head while other screws are fully threaded screws and threads come in different sizes the diameter is indicated by a number the most common wood screws are number six number eight and number ten the larger the number the thicker the

5:23 diameter i almost always use number eight diameter screws longer screws are usually tens in the us threads are sometimes indicated in threads per inch usually 24 or 32. these are important to know with machine screws or bolts where you need to get a nut to match the threads sometimes wood screws come in coarse or fine threads use fine threads for hardwoods and coarse threads for soft woods and plywood so when you're reading a box the first number will tell you the screw's diameter and this will sometimes be followed by the threads per inch then the length of the screw there are two components to a screw's head it's head shape and its drive type let's look at those now

6:09 there are lots and lots of different types of drives but thankfully there are only a few common ones that you really need to know about slotted screws are the original method for driving a screw like the name implies it's just a slot that a flathead screwdriver turns and for this reason these types of screws are commonly referred to as flathead screws way more often than they're called slotted screws flathead screws require a lot of patience to use and are very difficult to drive with a drill or an impact driver it's really weird how common they still are and they're still readily available at hardware stores basically they suck and i would never recommend them for woodworking with one exception if you want to make a

6:56 period piece of furniture with historic accuracy other than that avoid slotted screws like the plague i'll bet when phillips screws came out in the 1930s they were a technological miracle and they were a vast improvement over slotted screws a phillips head driver will stay in place a lot better but they still have an annoying tendency to cam out or slip when driving the last bit into the wood this tends to ruin the head of the screw and it also ruins the driver i've actually heard that phillips screws were designed to do just this in order to prevent over tightening but i'm not sure if that's true or not phillips screws come in different sizes so always make sure that your

7:41 driver matches and it fits well frankly i really wish phillips screws would become obsolete but they're still extremely common in the us and the vast majority of screws sold at hardware stores are still phillips drive square drives are a huge improvement they are also called robertson screws and are most common in canada i think that's where they were invented they're definitely harder to find in the us this square shape greatly reduces almost eliminating cam out and driver slipping here in the u.s you'll mostly find these in pocket screws star drive screws are becoming more and more common in the us and are my absolute favorite type of drive the star shape

8:26 virtually eliminates cam out and the driver almost never slips out plus they can accommodate a lot of torque usually they're sold on premium quality screws that won't snap if they're tightened too much and when you buy a box it usually comes with the driver tip that you need like the drive types there are all kinds of head shapes luckily there's really only two that are common in woodworking in woodworking a flat head screw is the most common type of screw to use the top of it is flat it has a beveled head that seats neatly into the wood making it flush with the surface to drive them you can just power the screw into the wood to make it flush but you'll get much better and cleaner results if you first drill a hole using a countersink bit to create that

9:14 bevel in the wood pan head or round head screws can have shallow or deep domes they sit on top of the material you're using and aren't used much in woodworking usually you'll use pan head or round head screws to attach some other material to wood something that you can't countersink into say metal or plastic wood screws are widely available in all home centers and hardware stores and are designed to wait for it hold two pieces of wood together they are threaded part of the way and then have a smooth shank on the top this helps hold the screws in place they're relatively inexpensive and come in all kinds of diameters and head

10:00 shapes you'll most likely want to use the ones with the tapered heads the flat heads unfortunately in the u.s most wood screws are still only available with phillips heads instead of star or square drives a lot of woodworkers really like to use drywall screws mostly for shop projects and jigs they're inexpensive usually cheaper than wood screws and they're easy to find just about everywhere they have thinner shanks than wood screws usually equal to about a number six screw and because they're so thin they're usually really brittle you'll especially notice this if you're trying to drill into hardwood and they're really prone to just snapping off but i had a real frustrating experience one time trying to build a workbench just drilling into two by fours and

10:46 head after head just kept snapping off like wood screws in the u.s the heads are almost always phillips drive also the heads have a bugle shape to help reduce tearing the paper on drywall they don't match the beveled shape of a countersink in general i don't recommend using drywall screws for woodworking projects production or multi-purpose screws are my absolute favorite types of screws common brands include spaxx or grk these screws are made with hardened steel and are incredibly strong i don't think i've ever had any brake they have self-drilling points that eliminate the need for a pilot hole but i would still pre-drill for critical pieces especially near the ends of the boards

11:32 to prevent splitting there's really only one drawback to using these they're expensive maybe twice as much as regular wood screws and while my mere mortals philosophy is always to be frugal this is the one instance where i believe it's worth spending the extra money the amount of time and frustration these types of screws save is enormous if you've never used multi-purpose or spax screws just get a box and try them out i guarantee you'll wonder why you didn't try them sooner if you're building outdoor projects use deck screws they're made of hardened steel and have a corrosion resistant coating for even better corrosion resistance especially on boats and in salty marine environments you could use stainless

12:18 steel screws while they offer the best protection from the weather they're not as strong as deck screws and are very expensive pocket screws are self-drilling and have a wide head that grabs the flat shoulder made by drilling pocket holes if you use regular wood screws with pocket holes they may drive all the way through or possibly split the wood machine screws have no points and are intended to use in holes that are already tapped or with a nut they're threaded along the entire shaft and are sold in threads per inch you may occasionally need machine screws to fasten a couple of boards together but they aren't very common in woodworking usually sheet metal screws are tiny with a sharp point intended for piercing and driving into sheet metal

13:05 think of your heating ducts for instance they usually have pan heads and will probably work as a wood screw substitute if you need one and there's a basic look at screws while there are a lot of choices available there's only a few different kinds that a woodworker will ever need know what kind you need and the sizes you need for your projects before going to the hardware store or home center just buy what you need i don't recommend stocking up on anything other than number eight inch and a quarter screws i always like to have these on hand hey if you enjoyed this video please take a moment to like it and be sure to subscribe to woodworking premier bortles thanks for watching everybody