I've often railed at the general and pervasive perversity of the universe as applied to grabbing the desired tool, or inevitably doing something inadvertently that you could not do at all if you tried to. People who ever are within earshot must wonder why they often hear, "One hundred percent chance!", echoing loudly.
I first learned about and had to deal with Robertson head fasteners in my first year, 1966, at McGill University, in Montreal. I would remove them from whatever I was working on, throw them away, and replace them with 'real' screws. Of course, I had to have the required size of drivers and may as well have simply reinstalled 'em. Interestingly, my dad's 1972 Morgan 27, built in St Petersburg, FL, was fastened with square drive screws. I tossed them as required, too, when I did work on that boat after we owned her and until we sold her in 2005. It's devilishly hard to get paint, glue or resin out of Robertson-, square-, or Phillips head screws. Score a big one for slotted! Most Torx headed fasteners seem to be on GM cars, which I've never owned, although they're occasionally to be found on my Volvos. They corrode quickly to unremovable nubs in inconvenient places. Hex socket fasteners are pretty rare, but were a favorite of my dad's; thus I have heaps of stainless steel capscrews from his stash for my projects. I have done most of my rough construction work and cabinet making with Phillips head screws since I damaged my hammer-holding hand in 1988. I do confess to actually buying and using stainless steel square drive screws on one project.
