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
Flat head screws are significantly cheaper to mass produce, so they get chosen by anyone who wants to save a few cents to edge out competition.
Allen cap screws don’t like to be installed by older machines and people with poor torque control, they tend to be over-tightened and break off. Phillips head screws are specially developed to push the bit out when tight enough.
Modern machinery doesn’t really have this issue anymore, but modern engineers are instead designing things to work without fasteners wherever possible, because of how expensive and prone to failure fastener joints are, so there’s little incentive to standardise…
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