Construction question/US-Canada content

[marc at getty.net (Marc Getty)]

More:

"Robertson had licensed the screw in England but the party with which he was
dealing intentionally put the company under and purchased the rights from
the trustee thus circumventing Robertson. He spent a small fortune buying
back the rights. After that he refused to ever allow anyone to make the
screws under license. When Henry Ford tried out the Robertson screws he
found they saved considerable time in the production of cars but when
Robertson refused to license the screws to Ford, he realized that the use of
the screws would not be guaranteed and stopped using them. This largely
explains why they never became established in the United States.

Today Robertson screws are almost unknown in the United Kingdom, scarce in
the United States, where they are used mainly in theatrical set construction
and account for 10% of screws sold, while being very common in Canada where
85% of the screws sold use the Robertson head."

From: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_screw? 

Sounds like another Canadian conspiracy theory to me! Also sounds like the
same thing that happed to the beta tape format killed the Robertson. If you
need to license it, market forces will make it so that an unlicensed product
of inferior quality is likely to beat it out.

-Marc

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
'83 VW Scirocco California Edition
'84 VW Rabbit GTI Pickup Truck
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Getty [mailto:marc@getty.net] 
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 12:24 PM
To: 'Bob'; 'scirocco-l@scirocco.org'
Subject: RE: Construction question/US-Canada content


If I have to look it up on Wikipedia to see what you are talking about, it
is DEFINITELY obscure! Back in the early 90s I built a huge number of decks,
all with either nails or philips head screws. Never once did I see "the
underrated Canadian invention, the Robertson screwdriver" (See:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Good_Turn>). Not once.

Here at work we use pin-in-torx and pin-in-hex for everything (we don't do
decks, just $4000 to $6000 podiums).

-Marc

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
'83 VW Scirocco California Edition
'84 VW Rabbit GTI Pickup Truck
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob [mailto:angus6@warpdriveonline.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 9:47 AM
To: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
Subject: Re: Construction question/US-Canada content

Around here, midwest I always use Torx or Robertson. Any good hardware store
carries them.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Bureau" <patrick.bureau@gmail.com>
To: <roccit_53@scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca>; <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 6:01 AM
Subject: RE: Construction question/US-Canada content


> The deck screws in the usa are philips, pretty rare finding robertson
screws
> actually.



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