Robertson, Phillips, and the History of the Screwdriver

I'll see from the start here I'm not the most handy guy I know which end of the hammer to hit with but I'm not much more used around the house than that but even I own quite a lot of these screwdrivers here I mean after all it's it's one of those common tools in the world half your houses put together with screws and yeah you got to hang up your hat somehow right I would venture to guess in virtually everybody that watches this owns at least one screwdriver but the funny thing is that if you are a viewer in Canada you are very likely to own any type of screwdriver that viewers outside of Canada are very likely to have never seen or even heard of in their life and the reason that Canada has its own kind of screwdriver has to do with a really unique point in history where a group of technologies came together to drive a whole bunch of innovation but that innovation was impacted by powerful world events at the time things like that the Russian Revolution and the first and second world wars and the powerful personality of Henry Ford the great debate between the Robertson and the Phillips head screwdriver is history but deserves to be remembered the idea of the screw that is an inclined plane that spirals around a central shaft is ancient the earliest known uses were a water pump that might have been invented in Syria to irrigate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon one of the seven wonders of the ancient world in the 1st millennium BC the vise was in use in Egypt at least by the 3rd century BC when the Greek mathematician and engineer Archimedes of Syracuse saw and described one the device was later incorrectly attributed to our committees as commonly called the Archimedes screw screws were also used at least since the Hellenistic period to drive presses force a pressing olive oil or pressing grapes for wine but screws were not used as fasteners like we use them today without industrial methods they simply would have been far too expensive to make a number of other methods including dovetails and dowels were using fastening as well as of course the much more easily produced nail screws as fasteners we're not apparently produced until around the 15th century nearly as no mention is in a late 15 century manuscript their initial use was as a fastener for parts of medieval jousting armor and in nearly same period for early firearms the wheel lock uses an internal spring to drive a piece of iron against a piece of pyrite a spark to light the powder the pyrite were up quickly and so I had to be replaced often and a screw was less used since could easily be screwed in and out the earliest screwdrivers were built to service these weapons and that they were called either a screw Turner or a turn screw and they had a pear-shaped wooden handle and otherwise looked a lot like a modern flat headed screwdriver but these screws and screwdrivers would have been custom made and used on very expensive devices like wheel locks and jousting armor and so screws we're not for the common folk in 1760 brothers Jobe and William wyatt of Staffordshire patented a screw making machine that used a file to cut in the threads following the pitch of a lead screw this allowed mass production of screws and was a precursor to industrial mass production machines the idea of using a lathe of some sort to cut threads was variously improved upon until the process for cold rolling threads was perfected in the 1880s but virtually all of these screws use just a few turning methods either a hexagon or square that was turned externally or a flat slot cut to turn internally and as anyone who has ever will used one knows flat headed screws and screwdrivers to have their problems there were many alternatives proposed and even patented in the latter half of the 19th century but those were not easily manufactured and slutted screws still prevailed but solutions were on the horizon Peter L Robertson was born and Haldimand County Ontario Canada and 1879 tinkerer Robertson produced a number of inventions including a new design for cufflinks and even a better mousetrap in 1905 received a patent in Canada for a new design of a corkscrew that centered itself on the bottle around the turn of the century Robertson was working through Eastern Canada as what was called a high pitch man meaning a travelling salesman for a Philadelphia Tool Company high pitch men would sell their wares say on a street corner at a County Fair calling out their wares and among the things that he was selling was the device of his own design Roberts 20th century wrench brace was a multi-tool that could be used as a monkey wrench as a brace as a bench vise as a screwdriver and as a rivet maker he called it the greatest on earth and if all that sounds impressive there were actually several multi-tools that were very similar patented in that era but it was in demonstrating another tool a spring-loaded screwdriver that gave Robertson his most famous idea while demonstrating the screwdriver which was flat bladed the blade slipped and seriously cut his hand that gave him the idea of a new type of screwdriver head that was less likely to slip or cam out this is not a new concept that was a great variety of new screw head designs patented in the latter half of the 19th century but most never went anywhere largely because of difficulties of manufacturing but also because virtually everyone already owned a flat headed screwdriver in fact the basis of Robertson's idea a square headed screw and driver was not new in 1875 Alan Cummings of New York City had been granted a patent for a screw that used a cavity either a square or triangle rather than a slot to address the same problem Cummings description noted it is well known that the ordinary screw head provided with a slot is very susceptible to injury caused mainly by the slipping of the screwdriver from the slot when the screw is being set home in wood or metal by omitting the usual slot and using the proper shaped cavity and screwdriver perfect safety is ensured to the metallic cap but Cummings design had a flaw the way that you made the cavity that the screwdriver fit into was by stamping it with a die stamping it deeply enough that the screwdriver would set inside it would deform or weaken the screw head Robertson had a better solution which he applied for a patent in 1907 his screw tapered the sides of the square gradually down to a pyramid shape this not only prevented the head from being deformed but actually helped align the metal grain as he explained knitting the atoms together for a greater strength it had the added advantage of less waste since a slot of a slot headed screw was usually cut out losing a bit of metal and weakening the head of the screw because it was less likely to cam out you could use more torque with the Robertson screw and driver as it was self centering it could be used with one hand whereas a slotted screwdriver usually required to the head of the screw was less likely to deform and the Robertson screwdriver was much better able to still remove the screw if it did it also worked better than the slotted screw if the screw had been paint over Robertson's guru and driver were particularly attractive to furniture makers and boat builders where it was more of a problem if a flathead screw came out because it would damage the material around it damaged the value of the product but perhaps best of all is that Robertson's screw could be cold formed that is because the steam tapered down inside the screw that meant that you could build the screw without ever having to heat the metal Cummings design as ingenious as it was probably was never made during its patent life because the screw simply couldn't be easily manufactured but Robertson's design could be cheaply manufactured in the millions calling his invention the biggest little invention of the 20th century so far Robertson gained enough investors to open the pl Robertson manufacturing Company Limited in 1908 he built a factory in Milton Ohio Ontario which gave him tax breaks and a ten thousand dollar loan the patent was approved February 1909 and by then the company was already filling orders Robertson was just 30 years old well the Robertson company described the initial years as hard with local competitors even challenging their patent the Robertson screws slowly gained adherence among boat builders and furniture makers in 1913 Fisher Autobody open a factory in Walkerville Ontario making wooden parts for the Ford model-t the Robertson screw offered a great advantage for manufacturing and Fisher became one of Robertson's largest customers using some 700 screws per body Robertson letters designed a spoofer metal to use on the all-metal body of the Ford Model A having been awarded international patents Robertson saw the opportunity to expand abroad and so he went to jelling him England and established a company called the recess screw company he marketed to British industry using the slogan the screw that grips the driver but his real plan was to manufacture screws in England but sell them in Germany and Russia and the first world war the Russian Revolution foiled his plan recess screw is turned to war production during the Great War and produce things like firing needles and Hand Grenade pins but after the war recess crews failed there seems to been several factors involved including a glut of supply following and the actions of some unscrupulous investors but Robertson resigned as a director of the company but the company in Canada was still doing well and Robertson looked to expand into the United States he attempted to negotiate a deal with a manufacturer in Buffalo New York but the company wanted to say in manufacturing decisions in Robertson perhaps stung by his experience in England refused to give up that control then Henry Ford came to the table an analysis had shown that the use of Robertson screws in the Ford plants in Canada had saved $2 and 60 cents a car a significant savings for car that retail for only three hundred ninety dollars and which was being produced in the millions Ford wanted to use Robertson screws in all his US plants but Ford wanted to say in production and an exclusive contract and Robertson stubbornly refused to give up that control when the deal fell through Robertson not only did not get the contract for the American Ford plants but lost the contracts in Canada almost a third of his business after three failed tries Robertson decided to never try to license his screws outside of Canada again but his marketing skills made these screws and drivers that screwdrivers of choice in Canada even though just across the border of the United States they're hardly known at all but Ford was still using flat screws which are even more troublesome on automated assembly lines where if a screw cam doubt it costs time and slowed manufacturing the solution started with a patent application in 1932 by John P Thompson an auto mechanic living in Portland Oregon Thompson's new screw design used a cruciform like the square headed screw this was not a new idea but again similarly previous patents force cruisers and crew swarm heads as he explained in the application pushed the metal ahead of the tool and so disturbs the distribution of the metal is to render the screw head extremely fragile Thompson's solution was similar to Robertson's by tapering the screw had a star die could be used without distorting the metal and again stamping the tapered design made the metal actually stronger moreover by tapering the screw driver could be used if it was not the exact right size and again the new cruciform headed screw would engage with the driver making it less likely to cam out then a flathead screw in 1933 when the patent was granted Thompson decided to henrique Frank Philips like Robertson Henry Phillips had been a traveling salesman by the time the patent was assigned to him he was the managing director of a mining concern the oricon Copper Company it's not really clear why he Thompson assigned the patent to Philips it might be that Thompson simply couldn't figure out how to sell it or it couldn't find investors but it also might be that he already had an agreement with Philips when the patent was filed but Philips refined the design and was granted more patents unlike Robertson Philips did not intend to manufacture screws but hope to license the patents to manufacture and collect royalties not surprisingly with new invention Phelps got a lot of rejections from companies who told the idea lack promise for commercial success but eventually Philips convinced eugenie Clarke of the American screw company of Providence Rhode Island to manufacture the design by 1934 the screw was available for consumers well the tendency to cam out could be troublesome for anyone driving screws it was a particular problem for manufacturing which even at that time was using power tools oops later patent applications seem to have recognized the advantage a 1934 application said failure of the slotted screw to retain the blade driver especially in power driven operations is not only dangerous to the operator but is likewise always injurious to the work it was clear what market he saw for his design in 1936 General Motors was invited to test the design the Philips head screw first went into use at GM making the 1936 Cadillac the advantages for industries large and small was obvious customers raved about the amount of work time saved within just a few years virtually all US automakers including Ford we're using Phillips head screws the airplane manufacturing and railroad industry likewise switched by 1939 20 companies had licenses to predict Phillips head screws by 1940 85 percent of u.s. screw manufacturers had a license for the design and the country grows more than 1.3 million adjusted dollars while the second world war limited foreign licenses it established the Philips head screw as an industry standard among wartime manufacturers the hundreds of thousands of planes and motor vehicles built by the US during the war were largely screwed together using Phillips head screws by the time Phillips patents expired in the 1960s there were more than 160 domestic licensees and half again that number of foreign licenses while Robertson had Canada Phillips screws are by industry estimates by far the most popular type of screw everywhere else in the world there's still a heated debate over which is better the Robertson's screwdriver of the Philips headed screw driver and that debate has only grown more heated recently as the Internet and fair trade makes it easier to acquire Robertson screws and drivers outside of Canada in general the Robertson's screwdriver does grip the screw better and that means that you don't have to use as much pressure to be able to turn the screw without it coming out and it's less likely to strip the screw which are both issues that bedevil common users of Philip headed screwdrivers but that ability to cam out actually offers an advantage for manufacturing where the Philips head it screw when the machine has set the screw it will came out and that keeps it from over driving the screw and as an advantage at home in a pinch you can use a flat headed screwdriver to spin a Philips headed screw and you can't do that with the Robertson screw so far the Philips head remains supreme pretty much everywhere but Canada but the Robertson screwdriver has made significant inroads especially among furniture and boat makers and the discussions become more convoluted as there are now many more alternatives on the market some of which are compatible with existing drivers its patents for the Philips head long expire the the Phillips screw company today develops and licenses some of those new types of screws and drivers the Philips headed screw was so successful that it might have been too successful in 1947 the federal government funded charges against Philips and several manufacturers claiming that they had engaged in anti-competitive practices including price-fixing and suppressing competition the eventual resolution in 1948 was a consent decree that reduced Philips ability to enforce its patents the Robertson and Phillips screws were the culmination of the development of screw technology over a couple of hundred years and they were two types that rose to the top and an era where there was a lot of innovation in the field it's really ironic that the events of the first world war were part of the reason that the Robertson screw was never developed internationally whereas events of the second world war were the reason that the Philips had its crew was and the relative phase between the two say that invention isn't about just the inspiration and pun intended drive of the inventor but if a complex interaction with historical forces and powerful personalities things that can't impact every tool in the toolbox I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets a forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guide on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes don't forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 2,595,563

Rating: 4.9440279 out of 5

Keywords: history, the history guy, P.L. Robertson, Henry F. Phillips, screwdrivers, tools, history guy

Id: R-mDqKtivuI

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 18 2019

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[u/PrinterFred]

The best part about Robertson is not that they don’t strip, which is also great, but that the screw stays on the bit. Try screwing a Phillips or Torx horizontally with one hand.

[u/WetBiscut]

I'd be dishonoring my Canadian ancestry if I didn't tell all of you phil-idiots that robertson's are better and there's no two buts about it, eh!

I'd eat a bucket of toonies before I ever use a philips screw willingly.

[u/gerryturnbull1989]

Great video! The darkest corners of hell are reserved for Philips enthusiasts.

[u/jrice138]

Interesting, I’ve never heard of them being called Robertson’s, we just call them square drive. But we use grks almost exclusively.

[u/masswholer]

That was way more interesting than I thought it would be.

[u/[deleted]]

I like the square drive when I have the right size, but if I don't I'm sol. At least with Phillip's and flat drives I can get by with the wrong size in a pinch.

[u/CarelessBlueberry865]

This is why when I encountered square drive heads in an application smaller than deck screws, most of the sources for smaller screwdriver bits were Canadian

[u/Ok-Brilliant-1737]

Wow, thank you for that!