[miamicuse]

Hmmm, interesting. IIRC Tapcon only makes hex or Phillips heads. Phillips of course are designed to cam out if the pressure gets too high, so in a way I can understand why you don't want to use them. But I would think about how this stuff is designed. Screws going into wood with fluted heads are meant to be driven hard, usually without predrilling, with enough force to countersink the head and not cam out (thus star drive). Tapcons are different, and obviously must always be drilled with the precise diameter concrete drill they recommend. I actually think Phillips drive is the correct head for these. If you need to drive any harder than a Phillips can handle, then you're going to strip the hole. If you can't drive the screw, it's probably because there's too much dust left in the hole or something like that. If you're driving through wood before the screw hits concrete, the wood should be predrilled, and the bare shank of the screw should be long enough to match the thickness of the wood. Even with a Phillips it should hold enough to countersink a fluted head.

I don't do it for the reasons you stated.

I keep 1/4" Tapcon screws in every length at hand for various projects, in regular blues and low profile whites. So one reason is I don't want to multiple that x2 with having hex and philips.

With Tapcons, I always drill at least 1/2" deeper than needed, and always blow the dust out unless it's an overhead application. The only issue I have is for the screws to spin in place after driving it in. Doesn't happen a lot, but happens may be 1 in 10 screws, which is annoying enough, and having to use wires, toothpicks, or whatever to fix it if not to drill a new hole elsewhere.

Last year ago I decided to experiment a little. I was installing hurricane storm panel tracks on two houses, that's about 800 Tapcon screws in three days. Plenty of time to try stuff. I tried different approaches. I used different concrete bits. Bosch bits perform way better then Tapcon's own bits (I later spoke to Tapcon engineering about it). I tried different drills (regular hammer drills vs SDS plus drills) and I even tried corded vs cordless since I was on the ladder for all the top tracks and boy a cordless SDS+ worked the best. I tried different driver settings 1 vs 2 vs 3 in driving the screws in, I tried an integrated dust collection with the cordless SDS, vs my 10oz compressed air to blow dust out of the holes. I tested them against blocks (lower tracks) and against solid concrete (upper track into the concrete tie beams), and I ended up with the approach of almost having no screw spinning. Once a hole is drilled, and the dust is blown clean, I drive the screw in with a driver with a high torque setting, but not all the way, may be to about 1/4", then switch to lowest torque to barely bottom it, then I use a hand ratchet with a socket to snug it tight. By doing this I was able to put in the last 300 screws with only 1 spinning screw. I don't like to use a Philips on a ratchet but a hex is much easier, especially if it's overhead or high. If I were to use Philips Tapcons to fasten wood to concrete, I would have to countersink anyways and the act of using the driver to countersink can be the reason the screw is driven too hard for it to rim out the concrete threads then spin in place. This was later on confirmed by the Tapcon tech I spoke to about their inferior bits. Since then I have used hex heads exclusively and counter sink the lumber to accommodate the hex head.

 

[Half-fast eddie]

Jeff ... think of the heads. Phillips are flat head, they can be set flush with the material. Hex head will stand proud.

 

[huesmann]

Hex heads can be countersunk...

 

[jeffnc]

Jeff ... think of the heads. Phillips are flat head, they can be set flush with the material. Hex head will stand proud.

Yes, that's what I've been saying. Don't understand your point.

 

[jeffnc]

Since then I have used hex heads exclusively and counter sink the lumber to accommodate the hex head.

Well if you are using hex heads for some other reason, and you're OK going to the trouble to countersink beforehand, then of course that's fine. Obviously that didn't happen in the situation in this thread.

 

[LawrenceS]

I'd agree with Old Thomas, hammer the socket on.

You could attempt to get creative. A 1/4 inch socket fits inside a 3/8 socket or at least my snap on 1/4 drive does. Might be able to hammer a 3/8 socket over the 1/4 inch hex to compress the wood to more easily get the 1/4 inch socket on. Or buy an el cheapo 3/8 socket and grind teeth into it for a home made plug cutter.

 

[miamicuse]

I'd agree with Old Thomas, hammer the socket on.

You could attempt to get creative. A 1/4 inch socket fits inside a 3/8 socket or at least my snap on 1/4 drive does. Might be able to hammer a 3/8 socket over the 1/4 inch hex to compress the wood to more easily get the 1/4 inch socket on. Or buy an el cheapo 3/8 socket and grind teeth into it for a home made plug cutter.

Possibly. I did try to hammer a socket onto it, but it was too deeply embedded, and the hex was a bit rounded from being driven that deep, it's a 4" screw. It just didn't have a chance of loosening unless the socket can fully bottom onto the head.

Wish I had a 5/16 or 3/8 hole saw. The other thing I could have tried, but didn't come to mind until later was to take the socket and shave the outside with an angle grinder so it becomes a "hole chisel" that can be hammered in to free the wood around the head.

 

[HuckPie]

Even if you could get a socket on there, the heads
would probably break off before they'd turn out.
A guy's gotta weigh out what his time messing around with stuff is worth.
I'd be inclined to just cut the boards out and replace them.
What are we talking about, three 2x6s?
Just cut 'em off as close to the screws as possible,
then start hammering down on what's left.
The remaining wood would break out in chunks,
then you could break the screws off easily.

 

[miamicuse]

Even if you could get a socket on there, the heads
would probably break off before they'd turn out.
A guy's gotta weigh out what his time messing around with stuff is worth.
I'd be inclined to just cut the boards out and replace them.
What are we talking about, three 2x6s?
Just cut 'em off as close to the screws as possible,
then start hammering down on what's left.
The remaining wood would break out in chunks,
then you could break the screws off easily.

Yes I end up chiseling the 2X4s around the screws to free the screws. I had 18 screws to free. By the time I was done I had badly damaged the 2X4 rails. That prompted me to have to replace the six pieces of the horizontal 2X4s, but that can't be done unless I remove each pieces of the 4" pickets nailed onto the 2X4s until I get to the next post which is 4 feet away. So all in all in order to free those 18 screws it's removing an additional 24 pickets and I damaged half of them because they were also nailed in to the rails and do not pry out easily. It's already done and I am on to the next repair but wish I could have cleanly remove those screws.

 

[schreib]

The only way to get done in a reasonable amount of time is using a sawzall. Go between the two pieces of wood.

LISTEN to this guy. You will be done in 20 minutes.

 

[rickwhoo]

I would have simply hammered the socket on the head and unscrewed them...

 

[justthecowboy]

They're the wrong screws because the heads are wrong for the application. Those screw heads are designed to sit above the surface of the material. A countersunk screw head design is what you want here - beveled like a drywall screw so it can sit flush or below the surface. Trying to drive a flat head into wood is either going to crush the wood or strip the hole if you drive too hard. And it's kind of hard to understand how the guy got the heads countersunk in the first place using a hex driver, if the OP can't get it out. Hex drivers are not designed to countersink anything. So both the head shape and drive type are wrong in this application. A better screw would be a beveled (countersunk) head design with a star drive, for example if you want something overbuilt but with the correct design

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Hate to disagree with you but my log home is build with countersunk hex heads about 500 of them. The ones in the picture are probably ledger board fasteners and are made to countersink, they have a taper under the head.

Good 5/16 hex driver, lots of pressure and low speed with a impact.

 

[jeffnc]

Hate to disagree with you but my log home is build with countersunk hex heads about 500 of them. The ones in the picture are probably ledger board fasteners and are made to countersink, they have a taper under the head.

Good 5/16 hex driver, lots of pressure and low speed with a impact.

Well you really haven't said anything to disagree with. If a screw has a countersunk head, then it's meant to countersink. If that is the case, then one of two things is going to be true. Either it's intended to countersink no farther than flush with the head rim (not the full distance of the hex head, or if it's designed to countersink an arbitrary amount than the rim will be wide enough to facilitate the hex driver to any depth. The scenario in this thread is NOT how the screws were designed to be used.

 

[Wilsonscustomcarpentry207]

Why would you have to replace the rails use a dremel to clear out around instead of chisel then flip the rails over when reinstall as from the picture the back side of rail appears to be against the post so flip rail hide mess against post

 

[chandler48]

@Wilsonscustomcarpentry207 you are responding to a 3 year old thread, which the OP has solved.

 

[miamicuse]

Why would you have to replace the rails use a dremel to clear out around instead of chisel then flip the rails over when reinstall as from the picture the back side of rail appears to be against the post so flip rail hide mess against post

This is a very old thread.

The reason I needed to free these rails was to lower the entire fence section a few inches from the post. This is why there are 18 lags to remove, 3 rails, 3 lags on each side of each rail.

I cannot just "flip the rails" over is because there are like 14 pickets nailed onto the rails, so flipping them over will mean turning the fence inside out. Besides appearance it not a factor since the rails are covered by pickets.

I end up using a wood chisel and free the heads, in the process some good size chunks came off, you can see the lags were driven such that the ends of the rails were already split. I came to realize that even if I could nicely and perfectly free five out of six rail ends if I only mess up one end of one rail, I still had to remove all 14 pickets from that one rail and those pickets were driven in with ring shanked nails and cannot be removed without destruction of the pickets. Which was what I end up having to do.