I am of the opinion that in order to buy dry wall screws you should have to present a notarized affidavit stating that you plan on using these screws for dry wall installation only.
In all other applications there are vastly superior choices. In some cases, using dry wall screws is an unmitigated failure in common sense.
Dry wall screws have a deeper than normal thread and are made from harder than normal steel. They are designed to screw through dry wall plus pine studs.
The deeper than normal thread means that the outer diameter is larger than normal and the root diameter is smaller than normal screws. They are fine going into pine studs.
I am in the process of re-facing my kitchen cabinets. Yesterday I was mounting the cabinet doors (6). I figured five minutes per door would be plenty of time to drive in two screws (mounting Blum hinges).
But…
The installer of the original cabinets (honey oak, face frame) used dry wall screws to join cabinet to cabinet. Of course he placed the screws exactly where I had my hinges. For the problem cabinet, I was able to remove the upper screw and use a long construction screw to hold the hinge in place (and also tie the cabinets together),
I was not so lucky on the lower hinge. That screw was also in the way, but the installer had snapped the shaft driving it into the much-harder=than-pine oak face frame. After an hour of struggling, I was able to remove the snapped portion of the screw (including the screw head). That left me just enough room in the slotted face frame hinge mount to bypass the remaining screw.
So that five minute task took an hour and a half (which is less time than making and painting a new door with different hinge spacing).
It is useful to know that machine screws are made in either of two ways. The first, is to do it on an automated lathe and cut the threads. In that case the diameter of the threads is the same as the diameter of the rod it was made from. Material is removed to cut the threads. Because the grain of the steel (or brass or stainless steel) is interrupted with each cut thread, the threads of a machined bolt are weaker than a bolt made by rolling.
Rolled threads are overwhelmingly more popular. They are much cheaper to produce and the resulting threads are much stronger because the grain of the metal is allowed to flow and follow the contours of the thread.
Picture in your mind that you have 1” diameter shaft of soft clay. If you grab it tightly and squeeze, the material will flow and grow larger where it seeps between your fingers and smaller where it is trapped.
Rolled threads behave like that. They have a male and female die and they roll them over the surface of the rod to make the threads.
While most machine bolts are rolled, 100% of all wood screws are rolled. The rolling operation not only forms the threads, it also work-hardens the metal, sometimes making it very brittle.
Weve all experienced work-hardened material. When you take a wire clothes hanger and bend the wire back and forth several times, it gets warm to the touch and eventually will crack. That is an example of work hardened material.
For wood screws that is an advantage. It makes the sharp edges of the screw to stay sharp as it is driven into the wood.
But that same work-hardening in dry wall screws, makes it unsuitable for use almost anywhere else. The temptation is that they are very cheap.
Note: Sorry for running on like this. I think most of you already know about all of this, but for some, this might be new.
But as I experienced yesterday, cheap” can end up costing.
In all other applications there are vastly superior choices. In some cases, using dry wall screws is an unmitigated failure in common sense.
Dry wall screws have a deeper than normal thread and are made from harder than normal steel. They are designed to screw through dry wall plus pine studs.
The deeper than normal thread means that the outer diameter is larger than normal and the root diameter is smaller than normal screws. They are fine going into pine studs.
I am in the process of re-facing my kitchen cabinets. Yesterday I was mounting the cabinet doors (6). I figured five minutes per door would be plenty of time to drive in two screws (mounting Blum hinges).
But…
The installer of the original cabinets (honey oak, face frame) used dry wall screws to join cabinet to cabinet. Of course he placed the screws exactly where I had my hinges. For the problem cabinet, I was able to remove the upper screw and use a long construction screw to hold the hinge in place (and also tie the cabinets together),
I was not so lucky on the lower hinge. That screw was also in the way, but the installer had snapped the shaft driving it into the much-harder=than-pine oak face frame. After an hour of struggling, I was able to remove the snapped portion of the screw (including the screw head). That left me just enough room in the slotted face frame hinge mount to bypass the remaining screw.
So that five minute task took an hour and a half (which is less time than making and painting a new door with different hinge spacing).
It is useful to know that machine screws are made in either of two ways. The first, is to do it on an automated lathe and cut the threads. In that case the diameter of the threads is the same as the diameter of the rod it was made from. Material is removed to cut the threads. Because the grain of the steel (or brass or stainless steel) is interrupted with each cut thread, the threads of a machined bolt are weaker than a bolt made by rolling.
Rolled threads are overwhelmingly more popular. They are much cheaper to produce and the resulting threads are much stronger because the grain of the metal is allowed to flow and follow the contours of the thread.
Picture in your mind that you have 1” diameter shaft of soft clay. If you grab it tightly and squeeze, the material will flow and grow larger where it seeps between your fingers and smaller where it is trapped.
Rolled threads behave like that. They have a male and female die and they roll them over the surface of the rod to make the threads.
While most machine bolts are rolled, 100% of all wood screws are rolled. The rolling operation not only forms the threads, it also work-hardens the metal, sometimes making it very brittle.
Weve all experienced work-hardened material. When you take a wire clothes hanger and bend the wire back and forth several times, it gets warm to the touch and eventually will crack. That is an example of work hardened material.
For wood screws that is an advantage. It makes the sharp edges of the screw to stay sharp as it is driven into the wood.
But that same work-hardening in dry wall screws, makes it unsuitable for use almost anywhere else. The temptation is that they are very cheap.
Note: Sorry for running on like this. I think most of you already know about all of this, but for some, this might be new.
But as I experienced yesterday, cheap” can end up costing.
