The Quik Drive attachment turns a single feed screw gun into a collated driver, giving you the best of both worlds. Simpson provides adaptors for all the popular screw guns.
The attachment can be used with or without the extension arm, so you can dryline the walls with the short gun, and then put the arm on to do the floors and ceilings.
I must just mention that I have seen this tool before and I will give a prize to the first reader who can name the year.
The first time I saw Quik Drive it was a good product let down by very cheap screws. I remember driving hundreds of screws into a plywood floor deck and some of them snapped with the shear speed and force of the power tool.
Collated drivers are demanding – you have to keep the drill spinning as you move along so the bit hits the screw head at speed and locks in.
A cheap screw will inevitably cause failures and, even if it is only one in fifty, that is the one that slows you down, because you have to go back and remove it.
Happily, Simpson is a company that understands the demands on fixings and the Simpson screws that came with the kit are very good.
The screws they sent for the tests were square recessed heads, which I much prefer for collated screws because the bit end is flat so it spins on the head until it engages, rather than moving in on a taper in the way that Phillips bits do.
The Simpson screws have a really stiff collation strip, which is slightly down the screw rather than at the top, so it means you can’t use any old collated screw.
The good thing is that this strip holds the screws a lot straighter at the head and the shank as they enter the nose piece, so the alignment is perfect.
I am sure they would have loved to have a thinner, cheaper bit of plastic if they could be sure it would work but it wouldn’t be trouble-free. The last thing you want is aggro with misfires or wonky screws, because the whole point of this tool is that it is fast and easy.
Putting it together
The assembly is very simple, so long as you know that the threads seem to be left-handed so you turn them the opposite way to lock the attachment on.
To be fair, it is written on the thumbscrew so you shouldn’t go wrong. There are three quick-release nose-pieces supplied with the kit to suit screws so you can get from 25 to 76mm in three stages.
Every other screw gun I have tried has the adjustment on the tool, so you slide the nose-piece back and forth to suit the screw length. This is, to my mind, a better solution, because it lines the screw up better.
That said, no screw gun works as well as it does straight out of the box and the reason is dust. If you are screwing into plasterboard (sheetrock) then, after a while, the gypsum dust will start to slow things down a bit. It doesn’t really help to introduce a lubricant because that makes the dust stick.
The best thing is to clean the tool every so often. If you see an airline give it a blast through and it will be as good as new.
If you buy this tool, read the instruction booklet – it is good. I forgot to take it out on site and I managed to work it all out but I had seen the tool before.
There are hints and tips in the booklet that will help you get the best out of this tool, and I am sure you will find it speeds the job up no end, especially as you can fix most ceilings standing on the floor and fix flooring without bending down.