What is a Confirmat Screw - When & Why to use them

00:08:08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uNkZf7BPvM

Summary

TLDRIn this video, Jeff from Today’s Craftsman introduces the confirmat screw, primarily used for joining melamine materials often seen in flat-pack furniture like IKEA. These screws, resembling a combo of a screw and dowel, offer strength due to their thick shank and large threads. Jeff demonstrates using these screws with plywood, showing their installation with specific bits and comparing them to regular screws. While not initially intended for plywood, confirmat screws provide a solid connection even though they showed slight splitting in plywood during testing. Jeff highlights that despite the splitting, they offer greater strength over traditional screws in applications with melamine. He encourages viewers to try confirmat screws in their projects for increased durability and strength. Finally, he discusses the posi drive head style specific to these screws and answers viewer queries.

Takeaways

  • 🔩 Confirmat screws are ideal for joining melamine.
  • 🔧 They combine the strength of screws and dowels.
  • 🛠️ Used often in flat pack furniture assembly.
  • 📏 Require specific drill bits for installation.
  • 💪 Provide strong joints, more than regular screws.
  • 📐 Can be used with plywood, despite slight splitting.
  • 🪛 Feature a posi drive head for secure fastening.
  • 🔨 Showed superior strength over wood screws in tests.
  • 🛡️ Offer durability and resistance in construction.
  • 🚀 Encouraged for DIY and professional woodworking projects.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:08:08

    Jeff explores a type of fastener known as the confirmat screw, suitable for joining melamine. Despite its appearance in cheaper flat pack furniture, it offers significant holding power thanks to its thick shank and large threads. Unlike typical furniture screws, it is thicker, due to different material thickness standards in furniture manufacturing. The confirmat screw requires a special drill bit for proper installation, showcasing its unique design that combines elements of both screws and dowels.

Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • What are confirmat screws used for?

    Confirmat screws are specifically made for joining materials like melamine and are often used in flat pack furniture.

  • Why are confirmat screws considered strong?

    Confirmat screws combine the strength of a screw and a dowel, providing strong holding power with a thick shank and large threads.

  • How are confirmat screws installed?

    Confirmat screws require different hole sizes and a countersink for the head, especially when used with a specific drill bit.

  • How do confirmat screws compare to regular wood screws?

    They provide a stronger and more durable joint, especially in melamine, compared to regular screws.

  • What's unique about the process of using confirmat screws?

    The process involves using specific drill bits or machines to align and drill correct sizes for confirmat screws.

  • What is meant by 'posi drive' head on a screw?

    Posi drive denotes a specific screw head design which requires a compatible driver bit, unlike the typical Phillips head.

View more video summaries

Get instant access to free YouTube video summaries powered by AI!
Subtitles
en
Auto Scroll:
  • 00:00:00
    welcome back to the shop I'm Jeff from
  • 00:00:01
    today's Craftsman and today we're
  • 00:00:04
    looking at a pretty cool Fastener this
  • 00:00:07
    is what's called a confirmat screw and
  • 00:00:10
    some of you may have never seen this
  • 00:00:12
    some of you may have seen this in flat
  • 00:00:14
    pack Furniture John just came came over
  • 00:00:17
    and he wasn't familiar with it so I mean
  • 00:00:20
    I think that says a lot uh but this is a
  • 00:00:22
    screw that is specifically made for
  • 00:00:25
    joining melamine together we have a
  • 00:00:27
    cabinet behind us here and we actually
  • 00:00:29
    used it in plywood so the advantage of
  • 00:00:32
    this screw is you can see it's almost
  • 00:00:34
    like the combination of a screw and a
  • 00:00:36
    dow so you have the strength of this
  • 00:00:38
    really thick um shank it's a 5mm shank
  • 00:00:42
    and you have the holding power of these
  • 00:00:45
    big threads we have a couple pieces of
  • 00:00:47
    melamine here so as I said before this
  • 00:00:50
    um this
  • 00:00:52
    screw I I not sure if it was designed
  • 00:00:55
    specifically for melamine but this is
  • 00:00:57
    the best screw for joining pieces of
  • 00:01:00
    melamine um so you can see sort of how
  • 00:01:02
    it would go here in a butt joint and you
  • 00:01:04
    may associate this with sort of Cheaper
  • 00:01:07
    cheaper Furniture if you've ever put
  • 00:01:08
    together Ikea or something like that you
  • 00:01:11
    may have seen screws like this usually
  • 00:01:13
    they're a little bit um thinner that may
  • 00:01:16
    be because most of this flat pack
  • 00:01:18
    Furniture is is using like a 5 a
  • 00:01:20
    material and not 3/4 um so this is a 50
  • 00:01:23
    mm so roughly 2 in
  • 00:01:26
    long uh the shank is 5 mm the threads
  • 00:01:30
    here are I want to say 6.8 mm and this
  • 00:01:34
    top portion is seven so you need
  • 00:01:37
    multiple sizes of holes as well as a
  • 00:01:39
    counter sync to get the head in there so
  • 00:01:42
    in order to join these together we
  • 00:01:44
    use this bit so this bit is actually
  • 00:01:47
    made by make it snappy and it's made
  • 00:01:49
    specifically for confirmat screws so you
  • 00:01:52
    can see we have our counter sink at the
  • 00:01:54
    top we have our 7 mm portion there and
  • 00:01:58
    we have a 5mm drill bit now these can
  • 00:02:01
    also be drilled on a CNC or on a diing
  • 00:02:04
    machine with two different bits but when
  • 00:02:07
    we're not using that machine we do it by
  • 00:02:09
    hand here so let's put a couple screws
  • 00:02:11
    in this and we'll show you the strength
  • 00:02:14
    of of this kind of screw we have a clamp
  • 00:02:16
    on our two pieces here if we were using
  • 00:02:18
    our diing machine all these holes would
  • 00:02:20
    already be aligned just by using the
  • 00:02:21
    machine but if you're doing this in your
  • 00:02:23
    shop you can use some biscuits for
  • 00:02:25
    alignment um in conjunction with a clamp
  • 00:02:27
    to hold everything nice and steady
  • 00:02:29
    that's what we're doing here so I'm just
  • 00:02:32
    going to eyeball this let me see get
  • 00:02:34
    this out of the way so you see we have a
  • 00:02:38
    nice Brad Point bit
  • 00:02:43
    here and this with this bit you really
  • 00:02:45
    want to clear the chips so I'll back
  • 00:02:54
    out and let's throw one on the other
  • 00:02:57
    side as well
  • 00:03:04
    and these you see use a posy drive so if
  • 00:03:07
    you didn't know when you see a little X
  • 00:03:08
    on the head of the screw like this that
  • 00:03:10
    denotes posy drive and this is a number
  • 00:03:13
    three so I have a number three posy
  • 00:03:15
    drive here in my
  • 00:03:17
    drill can run these in
  • 00:03:40
    you can see they have a big head so you
  • 00:03:42
    get a lot of surface area and they act
  • 00:03:45
    as a as a clamp um because you have all
  • 00:03:48
    of that surface to really pull in and
  • 00:03:51
    that nice shoulder with the 7 mm
  • 00:03:56
    hole should we try and break this in
  • 00:03:58
    half go for it
  • 00:04:01
    so like I was saying these are are like
  • 00:04:04
    Dows so you know we have an inch and a
  • 00:04:06
    quarter of this sticking into here and I
  • 00:04:09
    don't want to hurt
  • 00:04:14
    myself this is a it's a baby
  • 00:04:18
    Mallet this one's a little
  • 00:04:26
    bigger so that took a lot of Force to
  • 00:04:30
    break more Force than you're ever going
  • 00:04:32
    to be applying to the corner of a
  • 00:04:34
    cabinet and you can imagine if this
  • 00:04:36
    thing was a square so we're dealing with
  • 00:04:38
    just one corner and we don't have the
  • 00:04:41
    other Corners you know sort of holding
  • 00:04:42
    everything together as well as a back so
  • 00:04:45
    very very strong connection and you can
  • 00:04:48
    see this side is is pretty much
  • 00:04:50
    unaffected we have a little bit of
  • 00:04:52
    cracking here but um so let's see how
  • 00:04:56
    these work in plywood sort of an
  • 00:04:58
    offbrand you we're over here at this
  • 00:05:00
    cabinet you can see our confirmat screws
  • 00:05:03
    here that John noticed when he came in
  • 00:05:06
    and we wanted to try these out on this
  • 00:05:07
    cabinet as a test just to see how these
  • 00:05:10
    acted in plywood is it stronger than
  • 00:05:12
    regular screws and um we think we have a
  • 00:05:15
    pretty strong cabinet so let's head over
  • 00:05:17
    to the bench here and see how it works
  • 00:05:19
    in plywood have two pairs of uh plywood
  • 00:05:22
    mockups here set up these are the exact
  • 00:05:24
    same size we'll do one in the confirmat
  • 00:05:27
    and one in our normal 2-in by8 or 8x2
  • 00:05:31
    wood screw and we'll test them head
  • 00:05:33
    to-head see how they how they
  • 00:05:36
    [Music]
  • 00:05:47
    Faire I'm honestly not
  • 00:05:50
    sure what's going to happen
  • 00:05:53
    but uh let's do the wood screw
  • 00:05:58
    first so again this is two number 8 by 2
  • 00:06:01
    in uh construction
  • 00:06:07
    screws see how much that just loosened
  • 00:06:14
    up I think we actually just broke the
  • 00:06:16
    screws
  • 00:06:20
    off
  • 00:06:22
    wow that's uh not what I
  • 00:06:26
    expected so that was like three good
  • 00:06:28
    shots
  • 00:06:29
    and we broke that
  • 00:06:36
    one so this one loosened up a lot again
  • 00:06:44
    too I don't know if that one
  • 00:06:55
    counts still hanging on by a thread
  • 00:07:00
    could probably repair that with a little
  • 00:07:01
    wood putty maybe yeah epoxy Gap
  • 00:07:06
    filling uh you see we split this veneer
  • 00:07:10
    all the way down like 6 in into the
  • 00:07:15
    board we got a little bending here on
  • 00:07:18
    these but no breakage so that's sort of
  • 00:07:22
    you know why we equate these to a dow
  • 00:07:25
    because they have all of that Shear
  • 00:07:27
    strength where they won't break I'm
  • 00:07:29
    actually I'm really shocked that these U
  • 00:07:31
    snapped that
  • 00:07:33
    easily um you know I know screws don't
  • 00:07:36
    have the most strength in that
  • 00:07:37
    application but what a difference so it
  • 00:07:40
    doesn't seem to hold quite as well in
  • 00:07:43
    plywood as it does in melamine you know
  • 00:07:45
    a little splitting seems to occur but
  • 00:07:49
    definitely looks stronger than a regular
  • 00:07:51
    wood screw to me great in melamine I
  • 00:07:54
    don't know you tell me confirmat screw
  • 00:07:57
    try it on your next project I think it's
  • 00:07:59
    worth a
  • 00:08:01
    shot grab a pack and try them out if you
  • 00:08:04
    have any questions about these leave
  • 00:08:05
    them down below we'll see you next week
Tags
  • confirmat screw
  • melamine
  • flat pack furniture
  • plywood
  • woodworking tools
  • cabinet making
  • fasteners
  • drill bits
  • wood joinery
  • handy tips