Popular Woodworking 2006-12 № 159, страница 73
Out of the Woodwork Name Brand Tools Whether you know it or not, you often reach for eponyms in the woodshop. Distinctive furniture styles such as Hep-plewhite, Sheraton, Phyfe and Chippendale are named for their creators. The fancy word for a person whose name becomes synonymous with an object is eponym. We use eponyms when we build furniture or other projects using Phillips screws, Forstner bits and Allen wrenches. But who were these eponymous inventors? The Phillips screw or screwdriver (you can't have one without the other) was actually the invention of J. P. Thompson, who couldn't find anyone willing to manufacture the screws. Henry F. Phillips (1890-1958) of Portland, Ore., purchased the rights for the recessed crosshead design and obtained patent protection. He entered into a business arrangement with the American Screw Co. in Providence, R.I., which was better equipped to manufacture the product. Phillips and the American Screw Co. prospered when automobile makers universally switched to Phillips screws. Another eponymous product, the Forst-ner bit, was named for Benjamin Forstner (1834-1897). This popular bit forms flat-bottomed holes in wood, especially useful to woodworkers. Forstner was born in Pennsylvania but migrated to Salem, Ore., in 1865 where he was a gunsmith until 1889. His knowledge of metallurgy, boring and rifling helped him develop the bit that was originally called the "Forstner Flange Bit" or the "Webfoot Auger." He patented his bit design in 1874. Like Phillips, Forstner turned to the great factories in New England to take his invention into full production. The Colt Patent Fire Arms Co. of Hartford, Conn., best-known for the revolver pistol, manu- factured the bits with a short center point and sharp cylindrical rim. Having perfected strong bits that could provide accurate boring of gun barrels and cylinders, Colt adapted Forstner's bit for drilling wood. The Forstner bit won a prize at the Centennial Exposition of 1876 and another at the World's Fair of 1883. His business arrangement with Colt was lucrative; Colt paid Forstner a royalty for the rest of his life, and he died a wealthy landowner. Today you will see these bits spelled Forstner or forst-ner and sometimes foerstner. A third eponym, the Allen screw and wrench (also called the Allen key, hex key or hex head wrench), was trademarked in 1943 in the United States by the Allen Manufacturing Co. in Hartford, Conn., however it had existed in Europe about three decades earlier. Although H. M. Allen, owner of the Allen Manufacturing Co., did not invent this screw and wrench, his name became the eponym for the adapted American version. by Philip Leon Philip is a woodworker and English professor at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. If you have made basic repairs on power tools in your shop, you probably used an Allen wrench to turn setscrews or lock-screws in both metal and metal affixed to wood. A more interesting story behind the Allen wrench is who did not invent it. An erroneous account got started that the inventor of the Allen wrench was Gilbert F. Heublein (1850-1937), a German immigrant who became a liquor importer in Hartford, Conn. Heublein created and bottled America's first premixed cocktails with great commercial success, but Prohibition crippled the liquor industry. Following Prohibition, Heublein's grandson infused financial energy into the company on the strength of producing and distributing a famous brand of vodka, the basic ingredient, along with orange juice, for a pre-mixed cocktail known as a "screwdriver." Somehow the story became distorted that Heublein - the person, not the company - invented a new kind of screwdriver. Nothing in Gilbert F. Heublein's obituary in the New York Times mentions the Allen wrench (he died six years before the Allen wrench was patented). PW 104 Popular Woodworking December 2006 |
