If there's a dot stamped into the head of your oriental cross-head screw you have an ISO-standard screw there. The depth of the screwdriver recess is less than that of US Phillips screws. Thus a US screwdriver won't go deep enough to engage the wings properly, and the screwhead will strip out easily. My first remedy for this was to grind a bit off the tip of my #1 Phillips screwdriver. This worked quite well, and I used it for quite a while until I discovered that a #2 Phillips driver works very well in what looks like a #1 ISO screw head, and these are the most common. You can also buy official ISO screwdrivers. These screws are universally used in electronics work, so you might see if MCM Electronics, a mail-order outfit near Dayton, OH, or some other electronics supply house, still sells the screwdrivers for them. As far as I know, no US tool maker makes ISO screwdrivers, heaven only knows why. And screwdrivers made in Asia but sold in the US are made to fit US Phillips screws. Once I started to use a proper screwdriver I had little difficulty with most ISO screws through many years of repairing cheap home audio equipment. The steel in Asian screws is as good as any, it turns out. The only problems I ran into were brass screws (eek!) and steel screws that had been glued in or screwed in too tightly. Sheetrock screws use a standard Phillips driver. The only difficulty with these is that they're quite brittle. This means that they can break and then can't be drilled out because of their hardness, which makes for unpleasantness. Note that it's not all that hard to break them with a hand-powered screwdriver as well as a power screwdriver. Mark Kinsler _________________________________________________________________ Choose now from 4 levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - no more account overload! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/
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