How to Choose the Right Screw

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm James with JNC home repair. Today I'm going to show you how to choose the right screw. In determining what kind of screw you are going to need for whatever application you are doing. First of all you need to know basically what you are trying to fasten. If you are trying to fasten wood, drywall, you know, fence pickets. You may be trying to you know, screw some plywood. You may be actually even trying to screw through some metal, some corner bead, there's millions of different types of applications and there's thousands of different types of screws. It's just basically what kind of application you got and what kind of screw you are going to need. They do a pretty good job as far as labeling the boxes. It's going to kind of help you point you in the right direction. As you can see here, I've got some deck screws here. These are exterior screws, they are ever coated. These won't rust ok. It will also show you on the box how long they are and what size they are and what you are going to need to actually fasten them. You can see that you are going to need a number two Phillips to fasten this screw. This screw is actually two and a half inches long, that's another thing to consider. You want a screw that is going to be the right size, it's not going to be too long or too short. If you are trying to screw through a board that's three quarters of an inch, you know you are going to need a screw at least an inch and a half because you are going to have a little bit of a screw left to actually screw into the part that you are trying to fasten it to. So you always, but you also don't want to get one that's too long or it pokes out the other side either. So you know you got to really take into consideration what you, really think about what you are doing and what you are trying to build or what you are trying to repair and go for that. This is just basically one type of screw. You can also see on the box it also tells you this is basically for an exterior type of job. These are deck screws ok. These are basically dry wall screws, these are the coarse threaded ones they also have fine threaded ones as well. I prefer the coarse thread, I think they hold the dry well in a little bit better. The fine ones they really don't have nothing to grab and the dry wall can just slide back and forth on it. And these actually penetrate the dry wall a little bit better, it actually holds it in place a lot better. You can see that there's these are two different types of heads here, this is a number two Phillips, this is a number three Phillips. You are going to need a different bit to apply these different types of screws here so that's one thing to consider also. What we've got here is basically a machine head screw ok. You are going to see this more when you are assembling like metal type surfaces, sheet metal, stuff like that. This is the type of screw that you are going to use. This is also a machine screw here, you can notice the threads on a machine screw are real, real fine. These are usually applied to either like toggle bolts like this. That's a machine screw also as well. Ok and this type of screw right here will allow you to screw a nut on the end of it. If you got an application where you are actually bolting something together, whether it's a nut and a bolt, it's going to be a machine screw and that's this type of screw right here. It's got a real fine thread and a nut will actually screw on the end of it ok. This is another type of screw right here. These are basically used for anchors ok. When you are buying anchors it's going to come with some type of little screw like that. Basically it's just a little bitty threaded screw and you can see it's you can fasten it with either a flat head screwdriver or a number two screwdriver ok. You can use a Phillips or a flat head. One side is, it's got a groove all the way through so you can get your flat head screwdriver in there and then it's also got the cross threads so you can actually use a Phillips ok. If you are trying to fasten one of these anchors you don't want to use a screw that's too big, cause it won't fit inside the anchor, you know you can't get it to screw in so you, it's a good thing just to use the screws that are available that come with the anchors ok. And another type of screw is basically, this is like a four inch screw right here. It's a machine screw, it's got fine threads, it's used for toggle bolts. You can also screw nuts or whatever else onto this type of screw too if you got a real wide board that you want to screw through or you are trying to fasten, this is just a different variety of screw to choose from."