We have had a lot of snow and some bitter cold lately, but are warming up nicely. Hope you guys and gals are having better weather too.

 

Now I have a question I have been wondering about. I watch the 4 or 5 woodworking shows on PBS and have noticed something that puzzles me. When ever they show a person using a battery powered drill, they never seem to use the clucth adjustment. I have seen them put screws in too far, break screws and a whold lot of slippage on the screw heads.

Even the professionals take the screw down to near the surface and then let off on the trigger, only to give it a couple of quick squeezes to seat it.

Do you use the clutch?

Do the pros know their drill and wood so well that it is just a bother to them?

I must admit Ron, the only time I ever used the clutch on my drills is for dry wall. Beyond that it seemed to be un reliable, for me anyway. It seems that since woods are different, and even in the same piece of wood you could come across a softer area or a harder area, that for me I have better luck with feel, the sound and feel of when resistance is getting higher.

Now I have used the clutch when I am working with ply products, I made some ply wood boxes for our crew trucks awhile back, and since it was all the same type of plywood, I had the clutch working pretty good. I was able to set it so the screws countersunk just a tad below the ply surface. But for solid natural woods, they are too temperamental for the clutch to get a good reading. IMHO anyway

Clutch???? What clutch????

Oh, is that what that thing is???? Never use it.

I set my cordless drivers on slow speed and rely on the variable speed. If I'm set'n short screws, I slow way down and then listen as the screw snugs up. I even drive #5 brass screws with my cordless. Yup...........I like to live dangerous.

I only drive screws now with an impact driver.  You can run the screw to the surface, then a couple trigger pulls and screw is seated.  I install all of my drywall as well with my impact driver.  I have tried almost every color of drywall screwguns with adjustable clutches, always and always had to go back over the wall and sink screws.

Clutch?  We don't need no stinking clutch!  The reason is that if I use it I can constantly fiddling with it so its easier to leave it off and ease the screws in.

I think your mixing up driving DEPTH with material HARDNESS with screw LENGTH

 

Sheetrock screws: soft sheetrock, hard/soft wood. 

 

The proper way to put in a sheetrock screw ( with a screwgun made for drywall ) is to set the GUIDE on the front to only drive the screw down to a certain depth.  No CLUTCH used.

 

Wood screws: hard/soft wood

 

Plywood consists of Epoxy/glue and wood that is crossgrain.  No consistency to speak of and there's a great variable of wood density ( sap wood to knots).

 

Since a Clutch releases at a certain pressure if you hit a knot piece inside the wood the clutch releases regardless of the depth of the screw.  Which means the screw may only be partially in or may blow through the material or even worse, may just sit and spin in the wood, completely defeating the purpose.

 

So a clutch is not reliable in this case.

 

MDF is about the only material I can think of where material is same consistency except for plastic fasteners (screws into plastic)  which is what they were designed for in the first place.

Based on that Mike, it would seem that the clutch feature on most screw guns is a gimmick then. So there really is no use for it. I actually can't think of a situation where you could reliably use it, although I have used mine to hang sheet rock with good success. It was more of a function of the stress coming from the studs then the sheet rock, not completely reliable either as a depth adjustment would be for guns that was made for sheet rock. But I only have done drywall occasionally and I don't plan on it in the near future enough to invest in a rock gun.

dragon1 said:

I think your mixing up driving DEPTH with material HARDNESS with screw LENGTH

 

Sheetrock screws: soft sheetrock, hard/soft wood. 

 

The proper way to put in a sheetrock screw ( with a screwgun made for drywall ) is to set the GUIDE on the front to only drive the screw down to a certain depth.  No CLUTCH used.

 

Wood screws: hard/soft wood

 

Plywood consists of Epoxy/glue and wood that is crossgrain.  No consistency to speak of and there's a great variable of wood density ( sap wood to knots).

 

Since a Clutch releases at a certain pressure if you hit a knot piece inside the wood the clutch releases regardless of the depth of the screw.  Which means the screw may only be partially in or may blow through the material or even worse, may just sit and spin in the wood, completely defeating the purpose.

 

So a clutch is not reliable in this case.

 

MDF is about the only material I can think of where material is same consistency except for plastic fasteners (screws into plastic)  which is what they were designed for in the first place.

  SinceI pre-dill a hole for the screws, I'll use the clutch now and then.     After the first screw or two, I can tell if I need more clutch, or less.    I'll use the clutch with sheet metal work.  Too easy to strip screws there. 

Hardly ever move mine. Just go by feel, pull the trigger and let er rip.

 

I have maybe moved it a few times, but most of the time I don't even think about it.