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A Humble Toot's Early Days:

Screws Get Some Respect

Most woodworkers keep some screws around — in the bottom of a toolbox, in glass jars, lying on a workbench. Witold Rybczynski's new book is going to increase your respect for this humble tool.

One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw began as Witold explored the invention of the screwdriver — unlike most hand tools, it doesn't date back to Roman times — but he soon found the screw more interesting. "The screwdriver is such a simple tool, we hardly think of it like a tool. It's kind of like televisions: they're all over the house." he said.

"It's easy to imagine how somebody would invent a screw-driver. It's much

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more

interesting to consider how someone would invent the screw itself."

Witold's book traces both questions,

becoming a whodunit as he pursues the inventors of both the screwdriver and the screw.

Along the way. he gained an appreciation for mechanical genius. "We understand craftsmanship, but inventing a tool requires real genius, and I don't think we appreciate it enough." Witold said. The combination of industrial loots

and craftsmanship, which he describes as working with hand tools, surprised him. "lite Industrial Revolution destroyed craftsmanship, but it also depended on craftsmanship. They had to build machine tools with incredible precision — completely by hand," he explained. ^

In the book, he notes, ^^ "the modern screw ... is a remarkable little object." To find out who invented it, you can locate Witold's book through Simon & Schuster, www.sinwnsays.com. The ISBN number is (V684-8G729X

Shop Talk continues on page 26...

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Woodworker 's Journal April 2001

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