A drill bit that can also drive screws

Oh wow, a coffee-maker/fax-machine. I’ve used, collected, lost, sharpened, broken more drill bits and drivers than I can count. I’ve never wished for a worse drill bit attached to a worse screw driver.

I bet they’ll sell a lot of these to homeowners with deck projects, or small softwood projects, and I bet they’ll work just fine for that.

The use case limits how hard they can make these. Absolutely the philips head will get munged being used as a drill bit, and then it’ll cam out of screws at the wrong time. If your driver bit is much harder than your screws then the screws will get stripped. A stripped screw in something important is worse than a broken driver.

50% savings seems very optimistic. If you drill all your holes, switch once, then drive all your screws, there's only a few seconds this thing can possibly save you. Then you consider that it takes a smidge more effort to drill with this sub-optimal bit, and it's really a stretch. There would have to be some aspect of the project's assembly sequence that required you to switch multiple times.

Given how easy it is to blow out a Phillips head with a drill and a bit that's not perfect, and given how much difference a good 135 degree jobber bit from a reputable manufacturer like Norseman makes, I can't see this being very good at either in a real world scenario.

Anyone who cares about speed is using nailers or screw guns. Or has a drill and an impact driver.

This really just turns one problem into a bunch. I'll point out the significant ones haven't seen so far

1. It has no self-centering capability, because you've removed any split point

2. The hole diameter is massive compared to the screw head you can drive because of how it must be designed. Either you are limited in the minimum size of the fastener (IE it's bigger than you want), or the drive is smaller than you want.

Example: Let's say this thing will drill like a 1/4" inch hole and then you want to use a 5/16" fastener in that hole. You'd normally have a t-40 head on that fastener, but they literally can't. The width of just the inset torx portion (IE with no accounting for the bit needing to have a non-zero wall) is > 1/4" (it's 6.6mm), so they have to undersize the drive. Probably all the way to t-20, maybe t-25 if they are lucky.

That's insane.

There is maybe a small range of diameters that hit the right sweet spot.

3. The effective point angle here is basically unusable for anything but soft to medium hardwoods. On top of that, because of the flutes they removed, and the fact that it is hard to keep sharp, it will cause more tearout.

This will be made worse by having an effective 4 flute head instead of a 2 flute one. If this was in a drill press or a machine, it would be better than the 2 flute one, but in a drill/driver it's just going to add a lot of chatter and increase tearout.

It's the same effect that happens if you try to use a 4 flute or 6 flute countersink in a drill driver vs a one or 2 flute one. The extra flutes make it worse because you can't hold it rigidly enough

4. As it dulls, it will not just lose the ability to drill, but will start very quickly slipping when you try to drive the screw.

5. It is impossible to sharpen without custom jigs or automation.

There are useful drill+something combos, but i do think we found them all already (IE drill+taps are useful, as are drill + c'bore and drill + c'sink)

I don't think this is one of them.

I'm picturing someone holding a screw by the shank to drill it into the wall, but slipping and puncturing their hand with the bit. There should be no cutting edges with force applied in the direction of your body parts.

I might be atypical here but I rarely drive screws without a preplanned hole that's typically made in batches using a jig or machine, like a router or press. I rarely need to drive a screw directly into a random hole I just made.

If I'm constructing ad-hoc, I'm almost certainly using nails. Not only for convenience, but because they tend to be better suited to this kind of construction. An exception might be drywall screws, but even then, you've got a totally different system established for doing that.

I don't see the use case here. I'm also kind of stuck in my ways, though. I'm open to this making sense, but I'm definitely not an early adopter.

I think I might have thought I wanted this before I learned to plan my builds better.

This is the industrial equivalent of DIY-why?!

FWIW, woodworkers that care about speed for these operations (mostly niche furniture assembly) do them in parallel and simply have two drivers or use nail-guns with "glue nails".

Woodspur torx, self-piloting, self-countersinking screws:

https://cdn.axminstertools.com/media/catalog/product/cache/6...

The tip is scalloped and sharp for precise driving and piloting, the threading is also sharp, as is the profiled head which does a very good job of counter sinking into soft timber.

They are so sharp in fact that it’s very easy to accidentally drive them an inch deep. Comes wax lubricated in zinc plated or A4 marine stainless for external use.

Cute. But 3/16" is way too large a pilot hole for any reasonable screw. I think a #24 screw, which is the largest size of wood screw, has a 3/16" pilot size... and uses a #4 Philips, which is not the bit on this thing (and is sufficiently rare I don't even have one.)

This seems like it would be a disposable item once the tip wears, at least more disposable than a regular bit. Sharpening seems like it would be difficult and time consuming, if that is possible in the first place.

The real hack is to have two drills. Seems excessive but once you do it you'll never go back.

Not loving this. It looks like it would walk badly on anything but the softest woods as I don't see any kind of centered tip.

Secondly, the head of a screw is by necessity much larger than the body. So you're going to end up drilling pilots too large for the screw, or else have an extremely weak bite on the head and round it out with any torque at all.

Changing bits on a modern keyless chuck takes about 5 seconds. Throw one in your lips while you use the other. Or if you're like me and find yourself a power tool hoarder, just use a separate drill or impact for each.

The diameter of the drill bit looks too large to be used for drilling pilot holes for screws compatible with the Philips head. Apart from Philips being a terrible choice for anything really.