This screwdriver has a two-pronged head. Touch the head to the screw, press the button and the prongs arc-weld to the screw head.

Comes with a supply of shaped micro-explosive charges that fit round the prongs, fracturing them at the junction with the screw head for neat and easy removal after the screw has been driven.
-- pocmloc, Mar 10 2015

This is a fine idea! I think disposable bits to throw out with the extracted screw makes the most sense.

Someone write some edifying words about flux. Would you need to put flux on the screw to weld a thing to it?
-- bungston, Mar 10 2015


Flux is used to clean surfaces, typically of oxides, prior to joining.

Ferrous metals generally do not require flux as the oxide has a lower melting point than the parent metal; indeed, it is this physical property that makes welding steel so convenient.

Soldering and brazing, as opposed to welding, use a jointing material of lower melting point than the components - usually a eutectic alloy. Flux is used to clean and ensure wetting of the joint surfaces, as the temperatures involved are comparatively low.

When TIG-welding aluminium, a flux is not employed but the joint faces are cleaned abrasively immediately prior to welding; the weld itself is executed within a region of inert gas. Oxy-acetylene welding of aluminium uses a strongly reducing flame, flux, and a flux-dipped filler rod.

The purpose of the coating on a consumable-electrode arc rod s to melt and form an oxygen-excluding slag over the weld until it cools below the temperature at which it can be attacked by atmospheric oxygen. The combustion products from Oxy-Acetylene similarly act to exclude oxygen from the region.

It is also technically possible to effectively weld other materials such as hardboard, but the process has long fallen into disuse since interference from the Health and Safety Fascists has prevented the manufacture of the special flux required.
-- 8th of 7, Mar 10 2015


//interference from the Health and Safety Fascists //

They'll be coming for the explosive welding next.
-- bs0u0155, Mar 10 2015


Isn't hardboard a wood product? You know, the stuff pegboards are made of. I found nothing apparently relevant with a Google search for 'hardboard welding'. If it's actually possible to weld wood, that's news to me.
-- notexactly, Mar 11 2015



random, halfbakery