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

it's been more than 200 years since Canada and the United States fought a war against each other and if it ever happens again it's not going to be over the important issues like who has the best pancakes or the best version of Chris Farley it'll be over something that is divided not just North America but the entire world for over a century which screwdriver is best the Canadian Robertson head or the American Phillips head now while screwdrivers are among the most common household tools today this is no casual choice between a square and an X these two types of drivers are deeply embedded into the respective cultures through a dark past that includes involvement of two of the worst armed conflicts in recorded history and an incident involving the most powerful industrialist of the age who sought to kill his competition to save a mere $265 in this video I'll tell a short and fascinating version of the story and I'll explain why Americans are still suffering today because of the screwdriver Wars of a century ago it all began with a Canadian salesman named Peter Robertson in an era where it seemed like everyone was trying to invent a better mouse trap Robertson patented a few of his own ideas including a mous trap of all things and a fancy cork screw that nobody needed then one day while he was demonstrating a spring-loaded screwdriver for a skeptical audience the flat-headed bit slipped from the slot in the screw head and badly cut one of his best nose pickers now being a Canadian the first thing he did did after presumably telling his screwdriver he was sorry and taking a shot of maple syrup to Del the pain was he started tinkering with some new ideas for a better screwdriver of course he wasn't the first guy with this screwy idea a lot of folks before him had already been driven to the task including an American named Alan Cummings most people don't know that Cummings invented the square screwdriver 30 years before the man who gave his name to it besides for what would become known as the square Robertson Drive Cummings also patented a retro triangular drive and a square slot combo sort of a three for one deal of 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 deforming and weakening the screw head itself like many otherwise good ideas this one simply proved imprac itical to manufacture on a large scale so that's when Robertson came along he improved upon cumming's idea by tapering the sides of the square recess like a pyramid a shape that could be stamped into the screw without deforming its head just like the Egyptians would have done if they had 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 by the billions and for that he got to slap his name on it and soon he was marketing his screws all over the great white North as a solution for everything that was wrong with screwdrivers Robertson was a slick 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 a single hand the tool was also far less likely to slip or Cam out and damage the material around the screw furniture makers boat Builders anyone that worked on slippery things like butter churns and banana peelers loved the idea of a more secure match between screw and screwdriver but do you know who else didn't like the idea the Kaiser and his minions sweeping a path of Destruction through Europe actually both sides of World War I needed plenty of screws and Robertson tried his darnest to make his Square Drive the choice of every Fritz Tommy and Doughboy in Europe sadly many just considered a Canadian screw a bit knuckleheaded but as the war closed Robertson's idea caught the interest of automobile magnate and noted shap skate Henry Ford when it was calculated that by using Robertson screws he could reduce the cost of a Model A Car by almost $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 they run their business and make their screws Robertson refused and the result was that he lost out on the US Auto Market but also he lost the Canadian auto market and a third of his business now this was the second failure to license his screw design outside Canada and from that day forward Robertson vowed that his screw would remain a product primarily for the great white North even today a century after Ford all but killed the Robertson screw Canadians love their Square heads like they love their pet polar bears and hardly in igloo in the land isn't held together by their beloved Robbies of course the Auto industry wasn't going to just go back to the plain flath headed hand gouging slotted screws they still needed a better solution and that came a few years later with the development of a clever X or cruciform shaped design which we all know today as the iconic freen head you heard me history 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 upon by an American named John P Thompson and later brought closer to imperfection by his business partner Henry Phillips so finally America had its own screw designed by Americans 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 Fastener world the rise of the Philips screw was largely due to the same forces that turned against Robertson in the late 1930s the Auto industry adopted the design when the industry switched from making cars to making planes and other weapons of World War II Philip screws went into everything so when the Allied soldiers returned home they demanded the same types of tools that they were using on the battlefield and by the middle of the century everyone seemed to be using Phillips not just here in the US but in many other countries as well Phillips is not a perfect screw design by any stretch they suffer from several significant flaws including a frustrating tendency to cam out the driver popping out of the recess remember that was the main problem that Robertson originally set out to solve and who Among Us hasn't experienced a Philips bit popping out of a screw head and stabbing Us in the finger much like the accident that started the screwdriver War back in 1900 but as it turned out the world had changed by the age of the Phillips and what was once seen as a flaw began to be viewed as a necessary feature for the pre-war manufacturing industry a Robertson head might snap right off the screw as it was seated tightly in its hole A Philip screwdriver on the other hand could cam out of the screw as it became tight preventing overdriving if also increasing the chances of marring the area around the screw so the debate continues even today Canadians stubbornly hold on to their Robertson screws as hard as Americans do their feet they repeat the same argument that the Robertson screw drivers are more secure in the screw recess that they don't strip and ruin the screw like a Phillips bit often can that they can be held on the driver more easily for one-handed operation and so on meanwhile we Americans still try to classify our Philips heads tendency to cam out as a feature that was very useful half a century ago before clutches and torque adjustable drivers became common but they're still favored by drywallers and a few others today so what if they strip out easily and then you have to extract them with special tools and a great deal of profanity we're never going to admit that the Canadians can do something better than we can so while Robbies have remained largely a Canadian phenomenon they are available in many countries around around the world including in most hardware stores in the United States but we still look at their strange Square heads as a mere curiosity as we reach past them for a box of Torx headed screws and say finally a screw that won't cam out why didn't anybody think of that before want to see something else really interesting the mows sharpening station is an idea that was four years in the making designed to provide everything you need right in one place so you can sharpen and strap your tools quickly and get right back to work it begins with three Diamond plates there's 300 600 and 1200 grit after sharpening you pop back on the magnetic stopping plates which are colorcoded to accept three levels of honing compound including 1,800 2500 and 5,000 when your tools raised a sharp everything including the compound sticks the lapping fluid it all goes back in the case I like the Simplicity of it no more hunting around the shop for what you need it is all in one place in fact I think it'll be just the thing to take with me when I travel I like to carve when I'm on the road if you're looking for a new system or a second one for working outside the shop the owbs system is something you should at least take a look at

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 285,875

Keywords: woodworking, stumpy nubs, tips, workbench, table saw, scroll saw, drill press, quick tip, band saw, bandsaw, lumber, hack, hand plane, sharpening, tormek, worksharp, diamond stone, water stone, wood turning, bowls, lathe

Id: Y-2NzVBJ8gg

Length: 9min 46sec (586 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2024