How America RUINED the world's screws! (Robertson vs. Phillips)

It's been over 200 years since Canada and the United States fought a war against each other and if it ever happens again it won't be over important issues like who has the best pancakes or the best version of Chris Farley, it will be over something that has been divided not only in North America but around the

world

for over a century, which screwdriver is better, currently the Canadian Robertson head or the American Phillips head, while screwdrivers are among the most common household tools today, no is a casual choice between a square and an most powerful industrialist of the time who tried to kill his competition to save for only $265 in this video I will tell a short and fascinating version of the story and explain why Americans are still suffering today because of the screwdriver wars of a century ago.

It all started with a Canadian salesman named Peter Robertson in an era when it seemed like everyone was trying to invent a better mousetrap. Robertson patented some of his own ideas, including a mouse trap of all things and a fancy corkscrew that no one needed, one day while demonstrating a spring-loaded screwdriver to a skeptical audience, the flat-head drill bit slipped out of the slot. the head of the screw and severely cut one of his best punches, now that he's Canadian, the first thing he did was presumably after telling his screwdriver he was sorry and taking a swig of maple syrup.

For Del, the pain was that he started thinking of some new ideas for a better screwdriver, of course, he wasn't the first with this crazy idea. Many people before him had already dedicated themselves to the task, including an American named Alan Cummings. I don't know that Cummings invented the square screwdriver 30 years before the man who named it after him, in addition to what would become known as the Robertson Drive square. Cummings also patented a retro triangular screwdriver and square slot combination, a sort of three-for-one. There are many questionable ideas. Why was the original square screwdriver a questionable idea?

Because the manufacturing process involved stamping the recessed shape with a die which had the unfortunate effect of warping and weakening the screw head. Like many other good ideas, this one simply proved impractical. manufactured on a large scale, so when Robertson came along, he improved on Cumming's idea by tapering the sides of the square hole like a pyramid, a shape that could be stamped into the screw without deforming its head, just as the Egyptians would have done if they had made. screwdrivers, that was Robertson's real contribution to the industry, not the idea of ​​a square drive, but a way to make them quickly and cheaply for billions, and that's why he put his name to it and was soon marketing his screwdrivers everywhere. the

world

.

White North as a solution to everything that was wrong with screwdrivers Robertson was a skilled salesman, but his screwdriver was also objectively better. The square head is self-aligning and self-centering, making it faster and easier to operate the screwdriver with one hand. It was also much less likely to slip or come off and damage the material around the screw. Furniture manufacturers. Boat builders. Anyone who worked on slippery things like butter churns and banana peelers loved the idea of ​​a safer screw/screwdriver combination, but you know who? The others did not like the idea of ​​the Kaiser and his henchmen blazing a path of destruction across Europe.

In reality, both sides of the First World War needed a lot of

screws

and Robertson did his best to make his Square Drive the choice of every Fritz Tommy and Doughboy in Europe. Unfortunately, many simply considered a Canadian screw to be a bit silly, but when the war ended, Robertson's idea caught the interest of automobile magnate and he noticed Henry Ford skid when it was calculated that using Robertson

screws

could reduce the cost of a Model A car at nearly $3, so Ford made Robertson an offer he couldn't refuse, including an exclusive contract to sell only to them and the privilege of letting Ford dictate how to run his business and make his screws.

Robertson refused and the result was that he lost the US Auto Market, but he also lost the Canadian auto market and a third of his business. This was the second time that he did not license the screw design outside of Canada and from that day Robertson promised that the screw design would remain a product primarily for the Great White North even. Today, a century after Ford nearly killed the Robertson screw, Canadians love their square heads like they love their polar bears and hardly an igloo on earth isn't held together by their beloved Robbies. Of course, the auto industry wasn't going To simply go back to flat head and hand slotted slotted screws, they still needed a better solution and that came a few years later with the development of a clever X-shaped or cruciform design that we all know today as the iconic free head, As you heard me, the story is full of lies, it was Cummings, not Robertson, who invented the square head and it was FR, not Phillips, who invented the cruciform head.

John FR was an English inventor who patented Ed his idea in the 1880s, but like Cummings before him, his idea was later improved by an American named John P Thompson and then brought closer to imperfection by his business partner. Henry Phillips, so finally America had its own American designed screw after originally being designed by an Englishman, but we know how to take credit in this country and it was the third. man in the process Henry Phillips, who gave his name to what would become the most popular poor design in the world of bras. The rise of the Philips screw was largely due to the same forces that turned against Robertson in the late 1930s, the automotive industry adopting the design.

When the industry moved from making cars to making airplanes and other World War II weapons, Philip screws were used in everything, so when Allied soldiers returned home they demanded the same type of tools they were using in the field. battle and mid-century. Everyone seemed to be using Phillips not only here in the US but in many other countries as well. Phillips is not a perfect screw design by any means, they suffer from several major flaws, including a frustrating tendency for the screwdriver to pop out of the socket, remember. that was the main problem Robertson originally set out to solve, and who among us hasn't experienced a Philips bit coming off a screw head and stabbing us in the finger, much like the accident that started the screwdriver wars in 1900, but as it turned out the world had changed in Phillips' time and what was once considered a defect began to be seen as a necessary feature of pre-war manufacturing.

A Robertson head could break off the screw as it was firmly seated in its hole, on the other hand, a Philip screwdriver could come off the screw as it was tightened, which would prevent it from being over driven and also increase the chances of damaging the area around the screw. screw, so the debate continues even today. The Canadians are stubbornly holding on to their Robertson screws as tightly as possible. The Americans get their act together, repeating the same argument that Robertson screwdrivers are more secure in the screw hole, that they don't strip or ruin the screw like a Phillips bit often does, that they can be attached to the screwdriver more easily by just one time. manual operation, etc., meanwhile, we Americans are still trying to classify the tendency of our Philips heads to come off as a feature that was very useful half a century ago before clutches and adjustable torque controllers became common, but they are still favored by drywall manufacturers and some others.

Nowadays, what if they come off easily and then have to be extracted with special tools and a lot of swear words? We're never going to admit that Canadians can do better than us, while the Robbies are still very much a Canadian phenomenon. They are available in many countries around the world, including most hardware stores in the United States, but we still look at their strange square heads as mere curiosity when we walk past them to look for a box of Torx head screws and finally say, a screw that didn't come out why no one thought of that before I wanted to see something else really interesting the lawnmower sharpening station is an idea that took four years to develop and is designed to provide everything you need in one place so you can sharpen y Tie up your tools quickly and get back to work.

It starts with three diamond plates. There are 300, 600, and 1200 grit. After sharpening, you replace the magnetic stop plates that are color-coded to accept three levels of honing compound, including 1,800, 2,500, and 5,000, when your tools. sharply lifted everything, including the compound, the glue, the lapping fluid, everything comes back to business. I like the simplicity. I no longer have to search the workshop for what you need. It's all in one place. In fact, I think it will just be the something to take with me when I travel. I like to carve when I'm traveling. If you are looking for a new or second system to work with outside the shop, the owbs system is something you should at least check out.