: Why don’t we use hex bolts on everything ?

Question

Certain things like bikes, cars, and furniture use hexagonal bolts for fastening. Hex bolts can only be used with the right diameter key and they don’t slip like Phillips and Flatheads. Also, the hexagonal tip keeps bolts from falling so you don’t need a magnet to hold your fasteners. Furthermore, it’s easy to identify which Allen key you need for each fastener, and you can use ballpoint hex keys if you need to work at an angle.

Since the hex bolt design is so practical, why don’t we use this type of fastener for everything? Why don’t we see hex wood screws and hex drywall screws ?

Edit : I’m asking about fasteners in general (like screws, bolts, etc)

In: Engineering

Answer 1

>Since the hex bolt design is so practical, why don’t we use this type of fastener for everything? Why don’t we see hex wood screws and hex drywall screws ?

Because when the hex socket was invented, it was patented, so you had to pay a licensing fee to manufacture cruise with hex sockets. That made them more expensive, and because people were already doing things with flat head and Phillips drives, they didn’t see the reasoning behind paying more when they could do an adequate job with less money.

Some of the things that you list as desirable features of hex socket screws actually make them less useful for some applications. If you just kind of randomly jam a Phillips screwdriver that’s approximately the right size at a Phillips head screw, it will tend to center itself and you can drive the screw without having to carefully align things. If you are somebody like a drywall installer who needs to drive literally hundreds if not thousands of screws a day, your productivity will decrease if you use hex socket screws instead of Phillips heads, because you will have to spend more time aligning your screwdriver. Slotted head screws have advantages over hex socket screws too, like the fact that you can drive them with almost anything as long as it’s flat, like a coin or your fingernail. You can’t really do that with a hex socket screw.

Also, like many other choices in industry, and like evolution in living things, what is standard is not necessarily what would be optimal if you started from a clean slate. History matters. A company which had the equipment to manufacture slotted screws might not be able to use that equipment to manufacture hex socket screws. The people using a bunch of screws had screwdrivers for slotted screws, but would have to buy new screwdrivers for hex socket screws.