Drywall screws are used for fastening sheets of drywall to wall studs or ceiling joists. Compared to regular screws, drywall screws have deeper threads. This helps prevent the screws from being dislodged easily from the drywall.
Drywall screws are made of steel. In order to drill them into the drywall, a power screwdriver is needed. Sometimes plastic anchors are used together with drywall screws. They help balance the weight of a hung object evenly over the surface.
The two common types of drywall screws are the S-type and the W-type drywall screws. S-type screws are good for attaching drywall onto metal. The threads of the S-type screws are fine and they have sharp points to make surface penetration easier.
On the other hand, the W-type screws are longer and thinner. This type of screw is designed for installing drywall onto the wood.
Most installation guides and resources identify drywall screws as Type S and Type W. But most often, drywall screws are simply identified by the type of thread that they have. Drywall screws either have a coarse or a fine thread.
If you are attaching drywall to softwood studs, then you should use drywall screws with coarse threads. A finely threaded drywall screw should be used for attaching drywall to light metal studs.
There are also specialty screws that are designed for specific purposes. This is used for installing drywall onto heavy metal studs. The drywall screws you need to use here is a self-drilling drywall screw. Self-drilling screws eliminate the need to drill holes in advance.
Coarse thread drywall screws are good at gripping into the wood because of their wide threads. This pulls the drywall against the studs. If used on metal, this type of screw will tend to chew through the metal and not gain proper traction. Since fine thread screws are self-threading, they can work with metal well.