The Yankee Screwdriver

I've recently re-discovered a piece of retro-tech that should never have been abandoned, the Yankee screwdriver, and I don't seem to be the only one to have done so.

These are the screwdrivers where the blade is turned by the user pushing down on the handle.  Ask Mr. Google for pictures and a more elaborate description of how they work.

They seem to have fallen from fashion with the introduction of cordless electric screwdrivers and drills, which I am now abandoning.

Let's consider the downsides of the standard manual screwdriver.  First, they're slow.  You can let go and reposition your hand on the tool only so many times in a given time frame and your wrist can only be rotated so much.  For a long screw this can be annoyingly time consuming.

Secondly, it is difficult to keep them centered when repositioning for the next turn, especially with that bane of humanity, the slotted screw.

For years now, people have been using corded drills to drive screws.  This is usually fine on the bench or when working on a medium sized piece that doesn't involve moving around a lot, tangling the cord and creating a trip hazard, but not when you are moving around a large piece of furniture or something along those lines.  And frequently you have to dig up an extension cord, just to use it.

Cordless drills solve the problems of cord tangling and the need for an extension cord but then there is the problem that no one has managed to invent a battery that doesn't suck.  They never seem to be charged when you realize you need them so you have to find something else to do while you charge the battery.  After a number of chargings they fail to hold much of a charge.  They are always in some proprietary, unopenable enclosure so it is frequently cheaper to buy a new drill than it is to buy new batteries.  When you really want to apply a lot of torque they drain quickly.  And they are big and clunky.

Dedicated cordless power screwdrivers are just junior versions of the drills, with the size problem somewhat mitigated.

One shortcoming of all the power options share is that you really can't control the speed of rotation or feel the torque being applied to the screw. 

The Yankee has none of these failings.

It is powered by your own muscles, meaning no battery or cord and you can feel what you are doing and it won't run out of power.  You push it up and down so you don't have to reset it for multiple turns.  And they are small and light.

I believe that there are several reasons it failed in the market.  One is that people, especially male people, are easily seduced by the latest gizmo. I know I am. 

Probably, the major reason they failed is that they Stanley failed to adapt.  The major shortcoming of the Yankee was the bits.  When the cordless electrics came out, they used the, what are now standard, hexagonal bits, which were already in use in bit switching manual screwdrivers.  The Yankee used Stanleys* own style bits which when lost were hard to find and expensive to replace.  I don't know why Stanley failed to change the Yankee to accept the standard bits.  It could be that they thought that thought that they could get away with what printer manufacturers are doing now, trying to keep people locked into a proprietary format.  Or, since they made the electric drills and screwdrivers they may have thought that the Yankee was just obsolete.  Or it could have been just an oversight.  I don't know.

The Good news is that there are still lots of them to be found at flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores and on Ebay and there are several companies making adapters so you can use the hexagonal bits with an original Yankee.

The better news is that two companies have started making them.  One is a Chinese company that is called Isomax or Easypower.  It's hard to tell what is the company name and which is the product name from the packaging.  The other is A German Company called Robert Schröeder.  The Chinese company makes a 17 inch one and Schröeder makes an 8.5 incher an 11.5 incher and a 17.5 incher.  All take the hexagonal bits except for the Schröeder 8.5 incher, which uses the old Stanley style bits but it does have bit storage in the handle.

I bought the Chinese one and the Schröeder 8.5 incher.  The Chinese one is as well made as any genuine Yankee I've seen.  It has a plastic handle which some people might see as a shortcoming but I think it's better than wood.  The length can make it somewhat unwieldy but this would also apply to the long Schröeder.  Because of this I use the Schröeder the most.  When building a computer I pretty much only use the Phillips #2 bit which stays in the chuck so the limited bit choices aren't that important.  If I ever need to use some of the other bits I have a genuine Yankee and an adapter, although I suppose I could use the adapter with the Schröeder.

They do make drill bits for these, which makes sense they are also know as push drills.  I've never used them as drills so I don't know how well they work as such and the only bit size that seems to be available is for drywall screws.

The fact that these don't need electricity to work and can tighten and remove screws quickly means that this is something you're definitely going to want during and after the Zombie Apocalypse.

*I don't approve of possessive apostrophes and I'm not using them unless the noun is plural and pluralized with an "s".