Screw color question

[Paul Wolf]

In the past when I've bought Kreg pocket screws, they had a bronze look.  Last night when I went to the store to pick up a package of 1 1/4" coarse thread screws, they had a bright zinc finish.  Is this a change?  Thanks.

Paul

[David Munn]

As I understand it, the bronzed finish was formerly available, but now that finish has been discontinued. I'm guessing this is so they can streamline production and cut costs. For most uses the bronzed screws would have been hidden in the pocket hole.

[ray vile]

I noticed the same thing, the bronze screws are magnetic and my silver colored screws weren't so I'm thinking the bronzed color ones are just the finish on them and the silver ones must be stainless or something. I prefer the darker screws becase you can use them inother places besides a pocket holeand they don't stand out

[Fins59]

I noticed this too on my last purchase of screws. When they're in the pocket hole it doesn't matter on the color.
But I use the bronze ones a lot on non Kreg projects where the screw head does show and that color is complimentary. They just look like a special out of the ordinary screw head with the bronze color. So now I'm saving my bronze ones for those projects and using the zinc in the holes.

[KregRep]

Paul, great question. Yes, this is a change we made about a half a year ago (but depending on stock, your dealer may have just made the change). We moved from dri-lube screws to zinc screws. The result is slightly better weather resistance and less rust/oily-residue in the box. We're very happy with the change so far, and most customers seem to be as well. It does make it a bit harder to tell between stainless and zinc, but the price should be a pretty good indicator! ;)

[Dave Long]

I've been building custom cabinets for several years. I use the screws on the inside to attach the side boards to the face frame. I've never had to cover the screws as they are not terribly visible and there are shelf support holes on the same boards. The brown screws actually looked good with just about every stain color and okay in the cabinets I paint, but the zinc stands out like a sore thumb! Zinc may be necessary for outside use, but for a piece that's used indoors, I see no gain from the change. The problem now is when I make another cabinet for a former customer, the new color is very obvious. What you cite as an improvement is fine, but you seem to have overlooked the folks that have used the original product for years and depend on having a consistent supply. I wish your company would reconsider eliminating the originals, but I doubt that will happen. If you know of anywhere I could obtain a decent supply of the originals I would certainly appreciate it.

[Glen]

Hi Dave

The Craftex screws are the one's your looking for, you can find them at Busy Bee tools.

Dave Long said:

I've been building custom cabinets for several years. I use the screws on the inside to attach the side boards to the face frame. I've never had to cover the screws as they are not terribly visible and there are shelf support holes on the same boards. The brown screws actually looked good with just about every stain color and okay in the cabinets I paint, but the zinc stands out like a sore thumb! Zinc may be necessary for outside use, but for a piece that's used indoors, I see no gain from the change. The problem now is when I make another cabinet for a former customer, the new color is very obvious. What you cite as an improvement is fine, but you seem to have overlooked the folks that have used the original product for years and depend on having a consistent supply. I wish your company would reconsider eliminating the originals, but I doubt that will happen. If you know of anywhere I could obtain a decent supply of the originals I would certainly appreciate it.

[Thomas Persch]

I found that the new screws are not machined as well and the square drive jumps out of the screw head more easily and rounds the drive head.  Tjis did not happen on the old screws.  The cutter on the old screw is better machined as well.  Seems to be a cheaper manufacturing process now.  Thanks for the tip on where to get the old screws.  Far superior.  That is what used to make Kreg standout.

[Dave Long]

Now that you mention it I've experienced the same thing. I thought it was my driver bit at first, which I replaced, but still have some slips. What breaks my heart is KregRep's BS story about better weather resistance when the change is typical of a lot of companies making changes to save money. I'd rather pay a little more for a quality product but I'm probably in the minority. I'll check out the screws at Busy Bee tools and hopefully they'll be axs good as the original Kreg screws. Thanks Thomas and Glen!

[Thomas Persch]

Checked Busy Bee and they now only show Kreg screws.  I found some dry lube screws at Mcfeelys.com that are dry lube but I do not know if they are the same as the original Kreg srews regarding quality.  Would lke to know.  WIll have to order some to check out.

[Brent Thompson]

i found a site called www.QuickScrews.com that seemed to have a lot of different pocket hole screws. lots of other screws also. i haven't used any so don't know how good they are. they sell in boxs of 100 and larger quantities.

[Thomas Zaccardo]

Paul, Kregs total change from Dri- LUBE(bronze look) to zinc caught me by surprize. I go through about 2Cases a year. I'm a small shop and love the dri-lube course screw(8x1.5). Short story is that about a month ago I was assembling casework for a job with the bronze look screws. At the halfpoint of assembly the (bronze look) screws ran out and I opened a case of the zinc screws. While using the same clutch setting on my screw guns all the new zinc screws stripped out. I really felt sad, I knew that the new screws were not the same. I found the zinc screws were shy 1/3 of thread that the older screws had. I Called Kreg and told them this story, they don't seem to care.

 

[johnnyenglish]

I have had real problems too with the new zinc screws in the UK too. They are hugely inferior to the previous ones, I use thousands of these as I really rely on pocket hole work for cabinet building etc professionally. The sad thing is that the prices have gone up marginally for the zincs but the quality has plumetted. For certain the cost of manufacture/buying price for Kreg should be much lower as the quality is much lower thus the end user price should be lower, instead the end user price is the same or higher thus the only profiters from this choice are Kreg. I think this could be a very poor decision on Kregs part as the most important part of pocket hole work is the last part, the screw, if that fails to live up to expectations the other great timesaving parts of pocket hole work become utterly pointless and I will probably look elsewhere for my consumables. Thus Kreg may pick up the odd £100 every 3or4 years for a new system and probably another £100 a year in drills and bits but the big purchases of many thousands of screws a year will go elsewhere if I can find another supplier i n the uk