welcome back to Steve Robb reviews today I got quite the display going on here it's all about
screwing and how you actually apply a fastener from wood to concrete or if you have something
that you just want to fasten to a wall or on a concrete floor today I'm going to concentrate
on a project I have going on at my camp which is next summer's project and it's putting pressure
treated two-by-fours strapping them and gluing them to the exterior of my block wall these guys
haven't seen my camp before and the project I did where I finished off all the front of
the camp and put siding on I'll put a link down below if you want to check that out so you have
a better idea of what I'm actually talking about but this is going to be for the end of the camp
in the block wall and I ran into some I would say not actually problems but things you have to
figure out yourself when you're actually doing it and you know I never seen a lot of YouTube videos
on the problems that I ran into but I bought some new fasteners and these are concrete screws that
go into my block wall that I'm gonna use and it's going to go through my pressure treated
two by fours and they have a different style head I'm going to show you all the different types of
fasteners I've used in the past and why some are good some are not so good and the tools that you
actually use to put these in with so let's get to it right now okay so what you're looking at here
is just some of the tools that you actually need and some of the fasteners I'm gonna take the lid
off this now this came in a box of a hundred and it comes with the drill bit but not the bit that
used to fasten them in with now this one here this one here takes a let me just get a better
shot here yeah it takes a number three squared and if you take a look at this so you know see
if I can get a better leg on here there we go if you take a look at this you'll see how it you know
there's no slack in there or anything now if you go with a number two you know what you could see
how it moves around so you can't you have to use the proper one in the first place and so I'm gonna
try these ones out and so you got a better idea of what's going on I'm going to show you this two
by four I just kind of mocked up a bit here and here are some different fasteners now you could
see how this one here is it's got a square head on it and you can use some devices that they try
to sell like this which is the tapcon unit and you know what this doesn't work it doesn't work
for me and inside here is the socket so I'm going to get a bit here and I'll just show you if you
take a look at this I'll put it in here and you could see how recessed that's in there so I mean
to me this thing is completely useless because it doesn't fasten in all the way now it's great if
you want to use you know like one of these in the end here and yes they do have some that have this
type of head you know it's a Philips head and yeah of course you got to get the exact right
fit so with this kind of tapcon tool here is good for this but you know what you know for this for
this kind of style here like I just don't get it there's no way that you can possibly you know put
that you know tightened right up because there's a gap all the time and you'd have to finish it
off with a second tool so I don't really understand that but what I use is this and
problem that I ran into up my camp was of course if it sits flush like this you're never going to
drive that into your wood before you strip out the backside so what you have to do is you got
a drill first through your wood and then butter up the backside of your your wood that's going
on your block wall and in my video I do show what kind of construction adhesive I prefer but if you
try and you know have this counter sunk flush because I'm putting paneling over this and it
sits up now if you try to actually countersink that forget it there's no way that's going to go
so now you could use this style right because it's similar to the new one like this is the
new one right here and you could see here where yeah I'm hoping that that will countersink nice
because it's also got a tapered end on it now why am I not going with these top cons that I
had before because of the head there's no way that I found much success with these because
using an impact driver and this is what I use here my impact driver is I found that this style
of head you really have to get a good bit in the first place or just snap off the bits but I found
this stripped out a lot of times so when I put this in like this sometimes if you have to apply
a lot of torque with your impact this is 3/16 and sometimes these would just snap snap right off on
me you know so I went with I decided to go with the quarter inch and the square drive so that's
what I'll be trying this year so what was I doing last year I'll show you what I was doing last year
is I had to actually get one of these bits and drill a countersink in here first so that when
I did use my impact driver you know that it would drive it all the way in and make sure that it was
below the surface so when I'm touching my outside paneling it wouldn't interfere and that's a little
bit of a pain because you've got multiple steps you have to drill at first then you have to go
back and drill the hole all the way through for your fastener and I thought if I go with this
style here I could do it all in one step and hopefully it will pull in just enough because
you could see there's not that much that you have to pull in and it'll just go flush on me now you
can see here there's no way you're gonna drive this in in the first place because take a look
at at any of these fasteners I'll show you this one here if you take a look at this here I don't
care what you stick on the end of it take a look here the outside is bigger than the inside so you
ain't going to get that pushed into your stud because the more you push the more is going to
come out like this and whatever you using here has a larger circumference than the inside so that was
a failure so you have to actually countersink these so let's move on to the different type
of fastener so say you want to put something in the ground this is what I like these ones here
so you drill your hole first you just drop these in of course if it's gonna go through a piece of
wood or steel frame or whatever of course you got to drill your hole on the outside you drop
these in and if you have to countersink um well yeah you can countersink um but most of the time
when you're using these are actually using outside clamping force you know like a stand or something
and the more you tighten this down you could see how well this part right in here drives up like a
wedge and it expands and these are terrific for holding huge amounts of force and of course you
see a lot of people have these these are just concrete nails now these ones here you have to
actually drill first and this is the drill bit here you have to drill first and then you drive
them in and they work good in a lot of locations too but not for a wall where you're having studs
like for instance like using these not every stud is perfectly straight so you have to actually pull
it in if you try to use one of these a lot of times yeah you know you're hammering and it's
bouncing and you know it's not the best I find these are better for that these are probably best
for like on the floor like on a concrete floor you know putting something down but tell you the truth
I haven't been using them in years and so this is that kit you know from tapcon so you get this
and you get a couple of bits and you know I really don't care for it that much and so what's another
fastener that you could use and this is one that I like here as well I use this for raw for going
into concrete and it's light duty and of course when you've got something like this you're not
going to take it out so easily same as this so for security purposes like you see these on the
outside of a concrete wall where you'll have say bars going across a window or whatever to prevent
people from breaking into something you just drill your hole first just slide these in it's got you
know a nice neck on it here and you just use your hammer and just hammer them right in and yeah they
stay in there pretty good and you ain't gonna get the moat so easy a pretty well have to cut them
off and they're they're an alternative but they're very light duty and this is this is more or less
just like lead really it's pretty soft you know it's not it's not really really really high where
these here mantle men that these are hired you a hard time bending these even with a hammer I'm in
a vise but yeah there's different alternatives to what you want to do and I would say most people
yeah I just use this you know for driving in this with my nut driver and you know there's a
great you know plus it's magnetic on the inside and I think this is just terrific and I usually
go with screws now whenever I'm using you know a variety of metals or woods you know to to screw
something in and I'll tell you something you have to be really good on the trigger because when you
have your your nut driver here and you're driving it in you're going to get some impact action if
you go a little bit too much you'll start to spin threads here and the hole will just wallow out on
you and you know what you're pretty well stuck then you have to drill another hole so you have
to be careful going in too far and hopefully this summer when I'll be using these ones here and I'll
be trying this out and I'm going to get some new bits I'm not going to use this bit here because
this here is not a very expensive bit I'm gonna use an impact bit and see if I can just have these
just you know countersink them just enough so it pulls the board in with the adhesive on the back
side and this would be nice and flush well I hope you like this a little bit of a demonstration and
the screws I'll be using our two and three-quarter inches 2x4 stud is an inch and a half I found that
you don't have to go any more than you know like an inch an inch and a quarter because guess what
the block walls you know they're only so thick right depending on the age of the block walls
some of them are very thin now and I had such a problem trying to figure out what was the
best spot in a block wall to actually put these fasteners in because if you can imagine I've got
my my 2 by 4 stud here and I've already got it on the all and I just put with a pencil mark where my
holes are going to be and then I drill the holes out first and then I use my rotary hammer and a
bit to drill all the holes out well I'll tell you something I had quite the challenge it was quite
the challenge actually figuring out where is the best spot in a concrete block to put the fasteners
and yeah it's still a bit of trial and error you can watch all the YouTube videos you want on how
to do something but you have to actually get out there and try it yourself because most times yeah
what works for me might not work for you you know in your particular situation but it was
a challenging day in that video and like I say I'll put a link down below if you want to take
a look at it or I always put them boxes at the end of my videos for not just mine but some of
my friends videos as well so thanks joining me here today and I hope you learned something from
this because I'll tell you what this is years and years and years of trial and error so these guys
come back again if you haven't seen this channel before well you're welcome to subscribe Cheers
you