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
Think about drywall screws for a second. Their goal is to be able to apply force through the paper. If you had a hex-headed bolt, it would tear the paper as the head touched (making it impossible to apply force through it), and you could never get the top of the fastener flush or slightly below the surface of the wall.
There are a lot of applications where having the drive mechanism be internal to the fastener is integral to its function. Think about Allen head fasteners used in tight installations, flat head screws meant to be driven flush, anything where the fastener is visible like switch cover plates.
Edit: typos
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