The original maker of the "Yankee Brand" push screwdriver was (seemingly) North Brothers Manufacturing. At some point, North Brothers, or at least the Yankee brand name was bought out by Stanley Tools. (can you tell my history here is more via observation than research?) Stanley has discontinued producing the traditional Yankee screwdrivers (push screwdrivers), and in fact, they were last produced in the United Kingdom. So yes, for a while at the beginning of the 21st century, the Yankee Screwdriver was available only from the Brits. However, there are some similar devices that have been available from other sources on and off for many, many years. For purposes of simplicity, when I say "Yankee Screwdriver", I mean any of these various brands, unless stated explicitly. To add to the confusion, Stanley now uses the "Yankee" name on some of their NON-push screwdriver products. I'll just ignore those.
Some pictures here would be nice. Eventually.
They predate modern "power drivers" by decades -- I have several Yankee screwdrivers that are almost 100 years old, and are still 100% functional.
There seem to be three primary sizes of Yankee drivers, I'll call them "small" (around a foot long, extended), "medium" (around a foot and a half, extended), and "large" (over two feet long, extended). The small ones are the size of a conventional screwdriver, and do not always have a lock on the spiral action. The medium size ones are my favorite -- long enough to do the job, not so long as to be considered a weapon. The large ones are...large. They do a job wonderfully, but they can have clearance issues. For most uses, the medium sized ones are my favorite, but I have a large one I like. I just don't carry it with me. Curiously, some of the "non-Yankee" push screwdrivers seem to follow these same basic sizes. There is also what could be called an "Extra Small", which feels like a "home" oriented tool to me, which has a much shorter "push" than the "bigger small". Many of the "Extra small" Yankees I've seen have a handle that unscrews permitting the storage of bits (both screwdriver and drill) with the screwdriver; a very nice feature on what is otherwise a tool I've not found overly useful, as the shorter "push" just doesn't seem to do much for me.
There are several makers of Yankee to standard hex bit adapters made now, some links below. I've got some adapters, though I must say I do prefer avoiding adapters and using "real" bits, as they are smaller and thinner than an adapter and a bit.
One issue you may experience with the Yankee to Hex bit adapters is the fact that hex bits are designed to deliver torque to the bit, but provide easy removal of the bit by simply pulling on it. The problem with this is a Yankee screwdriver can apply a force to the bit in other directions -- most notabily, when releasing the spiral mechanism, they will often throw a hex bit out of a magnetic adapter, and launch it across the room (ok, usually only a few feet, but usually enough to toss your most unique and important bit into an unrecoverable place). The standard Yankee mount both provides twisting force to the bit, but also securely holds the bit in place. Some of the Yankee to hex bit adapters do provide various ways of holding the bit in place beyond a magnet -- sometimes, a screw-down collar, in other cases, a spring retainer.
It turns out they are a very useful tool for computer building and repair -- they can put a typical screw in or out of a typical computer in two or three strokes, with greater speed and greater control than one will find in all but the best power drivers. They are lighter than most power drivers, and have no magnetic fields to mess with monitors or disks, which is also a nice feature.
Plus, there is just something retro-cool about working on a brand new computer with an 80 year old tool.
Harbor Freight at one point sold a Yankee style driver with hex bits for amazingly cheap. Unfortunately, it was junk, I purchased a couple and they fell apart very quickly...and I think they knew it and quit selling it.
I purchased a couple for friends of mine who was getting married as a wedding gift (I had to order two -- they don't share tools well!). While I didn't unpackage them at the time, I have since had a chance to look them over. It is an impressive tool, at least for today. Is it quite as "nice" as my 90+ year old Yankees? Not sure. However, it does have a real, honest to goodness wood handle, and it works well. It feels a little lighter than mine do, but that's not all bad. The shaft lock collar is actually labeled with "On" and "Off", which confused me for a while: "On" means "Lock on", I was stuck thinking it meant "Tool is ready to use".
I have since been told, and I think I confirmed that while these were actual Stanley brand tools AND used what looked like traditional Yankee bits, the side-cut on the bit was different than the historic ones, meaning that old bits don't sit properly in the new Yankee scredrivers. I do not recall who told me that or how I think I confirmed it. So I may be wrong here.
Some time later, Garrett Wade said, "Stanley has stopped production of all Yankee Screwdrivers". Sounds like the end of an era. Kinda. However, they do have some quality-looking Yankee style tools now, you can search their catalog here.
Yankee Screwdrivers in Art and Literature
Tell me your Yankee Screwdriver stories, and let me know if I can add them to this page, and how to attribute them to you. (In general, you probably don't want me to post your e-mail address unless you are already something of an often spammed Internet celebrity.)
Write me at (nick at holland-consulting.net).
since 11/9/2007
holy cow. I realized I never put a counter on this page when I first
put it on-line, so I stuck a counter on it. 24 hours later, it had racked
up 20 hits, much to my surprise. So, I went back and looked at the logs,
and saw 10,362 hits...and that was only a year's worth of logs.
The temptation to alter the counter is there, but it seems cheating somehow.
That number is just since 11/9/2007.
$Id: index.html,v 1.20 2011/02/07 01:24:45 nick Exp $