We offer Phillips pan head stainless
steel screws painted black or white with most of our hardware. These
screws offer excellent corrosion resistance and look great for years
while securing our hardware to your fence and gate.
The down side of stainless steel screws
is that you pretty much have to pre-drill the holes you put them
into. This is because stainless steel makes a horrible drill bit.
There are two types of stainless commonly used for screws. One is
too soft to cut steel, so the drill tip on a stainless steel tek
screw will flatten out before cutting a hole, and the other is too
brittle, causing the cutting edge on a tek screw made from this
material to crack off before finishing a hole.
To answer the demand for a corrosion
resistant tek screw that will drill through steel posts or aluminum
post stiffeners as needed, we have begun offering our American made
galvanized tek screw painted black, using the same black coating as
on our stainless screws. These are capable of easily drilling
through 1/4” of steel while cutting threads and drawing tight. The
galvanized and painted finish is extremely resistant to corrosion.
Are they as good as stainless steel at
preventing corrosion? It's hard to tell. We've had contractors
using them on vinyl gate hardware installations for several years and
have not had any complaints about rust. They do offer the best
combination of strength, ease of installation, and endurance that we
have seen, and unlike virtually every other fastener available in the
fence industry, they are made right here in the U.S. of A.!
