The screwdrivers in your home are probably about the size of a banana. The smallest working screwdrivers in the world have tips just 0.3 millimeters wide - about the width of a human hair. They are real tools, designed for fixing mechanical watches, eyeglasses and the tiniest screws inside electronics.
These screwdrivers come in sets, with each one labeled by color. Each tip is so small that watchmakers turn them between two fingers like miniature pencils rather than grabbing the whole handle. They use jewelers’ magnifiers, called loupes, just to see where the screw is.
Working at this scale is fiddly. Watch screws are so light they can be lifted by static electricity from a fingertip. If you breathe too hard they can blow away. Many watchmakers say the most important tool isn’t the screwdriver itself - it’s the soft white cloth they keep under the project to catch escaping parts.
