I’m naively assuming that the most relevant features are surface area, corner angle, and taper, is that right? And what I want in a drive is obviously that it won’t strip, but also that it won’t cam out/slip. Supposedly camming out is a “feature” to prevent something or other, but I exclusively use hand tools so it’s mostly just an annoyance really. What I don’t know is, how do those 3 features affect strippage and slippage? What makes Robertson better at that?
The surface area of engagement on robertson is one of, if not the highest. The bit will bind on the the tapered sides before it touches the bottom of the hole in the screw, so you always get full engagement and 0 rotational slop (provided your bit and screw are actually in line with each other.) Torx more often than not has some rotational slop between the two, and phillips almost always does. Another nice thing about robertson specifically for hand tools is the sizes have standardized colour coding, so you grab the green handled screwdriver for #1, red for #2 and black for #3. It’s only brands that care more about the looks of their products than usability that don’t have at least a coloured ring on the handle of their drivers. I’m pretty sure torx has colour coding, but it’s nowhere near as common, especially seeing as there are so many sizes.
I’m naively assuming that the most relevant features are surface area, corner angle, and taper, is that right? And what I want in a drive is obviously that it won’t strip, but also that it won’t cam out/slip. Supposedly camming out is a “feature” to prevent something or other, but I exclusively use hand tools so it’s mostly just an annoyance really. What I don’t know is, how do those 3 features affect strippage and slippage? What makes Robertson better at that?
The surface area of engagement on robertson is one of, if not the highest. The bit will bind on the the tapered sides before it touches the bottom of the hole in the screw, so you always get full engagement and 0 rotational slop (provided your bit and screw are actually in line with each other.) Torx more often than not has some rotational slop between the two, and phillips almost always does. Another nice thing about robertson specifically for hand tools is the sizes have standardized colour coding, so you grab the green handled screwdriver for #1, red for #2 and black for #3. It’s only brands that care more about the looks of their products than usability that don’t have at least a coloured ring on the handle of their drivers. I’m pretty sure torx has colour coding, but it’s nowhere near as common, especially seeing as there are so many sizes.
Well I’m definitely sold, that sounds awesome!