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Cheap screwdriver set almost cost me a customer's Leica, switching to JIS bits saved the day
I used to grab whatever Phillips driver was closest for Japanese cameras, until a stripped hinge screw on a customer's M3 in my Denver shop turned a 20 minute job into a 3 day wait for an extractor kit. Turns out most of those screws are JIS, not Phillips, and a $15 set of proper bits grabs them way better without chewing up the heads. Is anyone else still seeing stripped screws from other shops that clearly used the wrong driver?
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max2231mo ago
I used to roll my eyes at the JIS thing, figured a Phillips was close enough and people were just being picky about their tools. Then I stripped two screws in a row on a old Nikon and finally ordered a real set, and man, the difference was night and day. The bit actually bottoms out in the screw head instead of riding up on the corners, so you get way more grip and way less cam-out. Now when I open up a camera and see chewed up screw heads, I can pretty much tell somebody went at it with a Phillips and forced it. It drives me nuts because those screws are soft and once they're rounded you're stuck drilling or grinding. The fifteen bucks is nothing compared to losing a job over a screw you can't get out.
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