Today

[andrewducker]

Have rewired a plug for the first time in my life. Why do we still have slotted screws? Surely we should have all moved to Phillips (crosshead) screws by now? Or are they still patented?

Flat still a mess, but we have a bit of floor to put a mattress on for tonight - no point putting the bed back together as the bedroom is being used to cut flooring to size. After dinner (dauphinoise potates are cooking as we speak) we'll be shuffling stuff from room to room so that the study can be done tomorrow. Sooooooon.

Comments

[beachpsalms.livejournal.com]

Phillips? No, no... proper screws are Robertson, with the little square.

[andrewducker]

Huh! I'd never bumped into those before! I'd not realised there were quite so many types:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw#Types_of_screw_drives

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

The Phillips head was patented in the US in the 1930s so the patent would have expired in the 1950s. Not surprisingly, about that time Posidriv came along.

I'll have to look and see if there are any current UK patents for this sort of thing. On the face of it screw heads look too simple to patent (at least here - the US Patent Office is infamous for its low threshold of originality) but from that article there's clearly a lot of ingenuity gone into some of them.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Indeed - 'A method of combing so it covers your bald patch'.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Oh god I love that article.

[beachpsalms.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Witold Rybczynski's book One Good Turn, which explores the history of the screwdriver. Turns out to be a fairly recent innovation.