Phillips offered his screw to the American Screw Company, and after a successful trial on the Cadillac , it quickly swept through the American auto industry. With the Industrial Revival at the end of the Great Depression and the upheaval of World War II , the Phillips screw quickly became, and remains, the most popular screw in the world.
A main attraction for the screw was that conventional slotted screwdrivers could also be used on them, which was not possible with the Robertson Screw. Gunsmiths still call a screwdriver a turnscrew , under which name it is an important part of a set of pistols.
The name was common in earlier centuries, used by cabinetmakers, shipwrights, and perhaps other trades. The cabinetmaker's screwdriver is one of the longest-established handle forms, somewhat oval or ellipsoid in cross section. This is variously attributed to improving grip or preventing the tool rolling off the bench. The shape has been popular for a couple of hundred years. It is usually associated with a plain head for slotted screws, but has been used with many head forms.
Modern plastic screwdrivers use a handle with a roughly hexagonal cross section to achieve these same two goals, a far cry from the pear-shaped handle of the original 15th-century screwdriver. No deal was struck, and the Canadian lost an important part of his business. Meanwhile, other engineers worked on their own types of screw heads. According to Rybczynski, the one that stuck came from inventor John P. Thompson and businessman Henry F. A Phillips screw offers many of the benefits of a Robertson and can be driven by a traditional slotted screwdriver in a pinch.
Phillips licensed his design to the giant American Screw Company, which got General Motors to use the screw in the Cadillac. Within the decade, almost all automakers were using Phillips screws.
A Phillips is, arguably, not a better screw than a Robertson. What is a Screw? What is a Screwdriver? A screw is any shaft with a corkscrew-shaped groove formed on its surface. Screws are used to fasten two objects together. A screwdriver is a tool for driving turning screws; screwdrivers have a tip that fits into the head of a screw.
Early Screws Around the first century, screw shaped tools became common, however, historians do not know who invented the first. Early screws were made from wood and were used in wine presses, olive oil presses, and for pressing clothes. Metal screws and nuts used to fasten two objects together first appeared in the fifteenth century.
Mass Production of Screws In , English instrument maker, Jesse Ramsden invented the first satisfactory screw-cutting lathe. The case, United States v.
Phillips Screw Co. District Court of Northern Illinois Chicago. The case was concluded in with a consent decree that dissolved the patent pool, likely making it difficult to protect the collection of patents that the company relied upon to protect its intellectual property. In any case, unlicensed companies had earlier begun to produce similar competing designs, some of which were convinced to buy into the licensing agreement.
Other manufacturers, however, said that their designs were not based on the Phillips design, but on the older, unprotected Frearson design. In the same year, a final refinement was patented on the Phillips drive system by an engineer from the American Screw Company; that patent expired in Henry Phillips died in his home at the Ione Plaza Apartments in Portland on April 13, ; he was sixty-eight years old.
Although the Phillips drive system remains far and away the most widely used internal screw-driving system—industry estimates indicate that it is used in at least half of all internally driven screws—it is being steadily replaced by newer technologies.
From its current headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, the Phillips Screw Company continues to develop and license drive systems that are replacing its founding technology. The Oregon History Wayfinder is an interactive map that identifies significant places, people, and events in Oregon history. Phillips, Henry F. Means For Uniting a Screw with a Driver. US Patent , filed July 3, , and issued July 7, Skip to main content.
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