Drywall (DW) screws are really a bad choice for most all WW applications and do cause problems... often more than they are worth..
Heads break off the shanks... as they are designed to do...
They are brittle..
No shear strength to speak of...

Don't do tension worth a farthing either...
They corrode quite easily..
Stain the work, PERMANENTLY... now or later..
DW screws and acidic woods do not mix....
Bugle heads spread/split wood easily..

The American Woodworking Institute (AWI) Quality Standards forbids them in the assembly or installation of casework. The reason being they are brittle and will fail in shear.
http://www.npl.co.uk/upload/pdf/corrosion_of_metals_by_wood.pdf

Wood screws are better than drywall screws for woodworking projects. Drywall screws are made of hardened, brittle steel, and the shaft will often snap during installation, especially if they're screwed into hardwoods. That can be a disaster when you're working with finished material and you want to remove the screw to re-position something ot for any other reason... it's nearly impossible to get the broken off shanks out of the wood without damaging the surface....

Hidden broken off shanks are not good for your saw blades at all....
Drywall screws are hardened so that the Phillips slots won't strip/cam out under the stresses of high-speed screw guns. Wood screws are thicker and made of softer
metal, making them more snap-resistant...
Different thread patterns make the screws work slightly differently too. Wood screws have a partial smooth shank rather than fully threaded just below the screw head as DW screws are... (Unless they are long DW screws intended for layered X board or thicker than normal material as used in commercial construction)..

The smooth section of the shank slides by the top half of the wood so the head of the screw and the threads can/will, clamp both pieces of wood together....
Drywall screws being threaded all the way to the head (which means nothing to DW) and when you use a drywall screw to fasten two boards together, the top threads will anchor in the top board and more often than not, keep the two boards apart (slightly to a lot) unless the two pieces are tightly clamped to begin with or a clearance hole is drilled in the 1st piece 1st... Then when you try to draw your pieces together - the screw almost always snaps...

Edited September 18, 20169 yr by Stick486

Wouldn't never ever use them in finished project, but they sure are handy for quick jigs, wall brackets, beer hangers.  Since a lot of those uses involve soft wood or plywood, I've never had one snap at me (curse me, yes, snap no).

I use them, but only for birdhouses. I figure they'll rust and fall apart in 6.4 years (on average), and by that time the birdhouse should be replaced anyway! As for staining the wood, that only makes it look more like a natural tree part. Oh,yes.... the places where the wood isn't drawn tightly together? I read somewhere that ventilation is critical to keep the young birds from overheating! 

John

Nearly every jig in my shop is held together with DW screws. Quick, economical and reversible. And yes, quite a few have snapped.

Drywall and drywall screws are two things I would prefer not to use the rest of my life. 

22 hours ago, HARO50 said:

I use them, but only for birdhouses. I figure they'll rust and fall apart in 6.4 years (on average), and by that time the birdhouse should be replaced anyway! As for staining the wood, that only makes it look more like a natural tree part. Oh,yes.... the places where the wood isn't drawn tightly together? I read somewhere that ventilation is critical to keep the young birds from overheating! 

John

-- SNORK!

Hate the darn things. Only use ceramic or SS screws now.

I use different screws fore casework and different for blind holes, pocket screws and doors.

Never had a problem reversing a square drive ceramic screw...... Just saying.....

back when I was suffering awful carpal tunnel I switched to Torx drive screws and really really like them.  Unfortunately    I haven't found a star drive screw that has a shank diameter the same size as the major diameter of the thread which is the  prime feature of a real wood screw.

I've been buying Ultimate Square Drive Flat Head  Deerwood screws from wwhardware.com recently.   I like them a lot.  Recently, I found out that my local cabinetmaker's hardware store carries Deerwood but in their Woodmaster Jar program -- all sizes in a jar for one price (around $10, if I remember correctly).   I'll have to try them out (but I don't really like the phillips-square combo drive, I might have to buy a special driver for that).

I've done a lot of work for local furniture stores and delivery services.   It always amazes me (and often not in a pleasing way) the terrible screws that get put in furniture by Asian manufacturers (who make nearly all the furniture these days).  Yes, even sometimes drywall screws or screws made of such soft metal, it's tough to get them in without damaging the drive or snapping them off.  If I have to take a broken screw out, I almost always replace it with a better one as it's likely to go bad.   I figure it can sometimes take a 30-60 minutes to fix a screw that gets stripped or broken.   So the poor consumer is spending $3000 on a piece of furniture and the company that made it saved 10-20 cents by putting in bad screws.   Just yesterday, I was putting up some drapery rods and the very last screw sheared off as it reached the wall @)(*#)*$(#    Took them all out and put in Deerwoods.

I wish a WS was priced the same as a DS.

We used drywall screws right off the shelf at Home Depot. We put all commercial  melamine boxes together with them . Not much of a problem...

Pre-drill, screw and done. If your trying to let the screw pre-drill it will either breakk or strip. This happens with most. 

 

Information corrected......drywall screws are fine for certain applications...in commercial drywall screws are king because of price and availability. ..