I've some worn Pozidrive screwdrivers – the shanks seem to be made of nice material, I'm hoping one day to get round to re-grinding as flat-ended conventional drivers.

If they are a simple high carbon steel then repurposing them should be straight forward. If they are chrome vanadium then I think heat treatment may be a bit more complex.

Mike

The best repurposing of a screwdriver that I have seen was of a new one.

When I worked in the Environmental Test Lab, we bought a shock-test machine:

… an early version of this one, if I recall correctly: **LINK**

http://www.lansmont.com/products/shock/standard-shock-test-systems/lansmont-65-81/

For obvious reasons, the machine was supplied with a positive mechanical safety lock … comprising a steel pin pushed through a hole in the guide bar.

To our astonishment [having paid a significant price for the machine], aforesaid pin was a Stanley screwdriver with its Phillips tip neatly ground-off … the bright red plastic handle was a dead give-away.

Upon reflection, we did agree that this was a fine piece of 'value engineering'.

MichaelG.

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Edit: the holes in Lansmont's guide bars are clearly visible in the video featured on that page.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/02/2019 19:17:16

Assuming you are talking about modern round plastic handled things rather than nice old flat wooden handles. Apart from grinding down to bradawl, scriber, punch you can add bits for hex key, nut runner etc. The brake handle on my driving trolley is ex screwdriver as is the hand pump handle and the blowdown spanner would have been if I hadn't had a nut runner that size.

If you are making any specialist pin spanners often made out of a bit of flat sheet you can weld the functional bit onto a screwdriver to give it a better handle and save a bit of sheet.

Screwdriver handles are useful to re-purpose as fuel tanks for ancient model diesel engines (useless for glow fuel though – they melt)

Here is what I made for a '50's ED Baby, Ok, wrong shape (not worth a form tool) but right colour, Works well though.

* Danny M *

Put a hex on the end, you won't regret it.

Canadians will be putting a Robertson on theirs!?

I'v made one into a Robertson driver, too hard to file, ground it up with the Dremel, it was a Philips so the original tip was a good guide for forming the square free hand. Another was made into a 3 flute driver for a special screw. A couple more have points on them, the first one was for aligning rivet holes in aircraft skins. I have thought of using a redundant screw drive for a crankshaft for a hot air motor, but I'v never got round to it.

Ian S C

Hi

Grind a four faceted acute point on the end of the shaft to make what an old school woodworker would call a "Bird-Cage Makers Awl" – used originally for making small holes in thin wood without splitting it in the days when the whole cage was made of wood. Lots of twist and not too much push!.

I think Marples made these awls until the eighties. Useful now for making pilot holes for woodscrews. Works better than a bradawl in my opinion.

Rod

I've used old screwdrivers as handles for welding hammers (for chipping slag off weld when arc welding). Head is just a bit of mild steel (or whatever is sitting around) welded to the end of the old screwdriver.