Wrenching development
By Bob Weber, Motormouth, Take 2
Chicago Tribune, July 22, 2002

Tool inventor back with new type of ratchet release

You have probably heard of the quick-release ratchet wrench. But you may never have heard of Pete Roberts, the guy who invented this tool in the early 1960s. Four decades later he has come up with its counterpart, a line of ratchets, extensions and drives that keep the sockets from falling off accidentally.

Not only is it annoying to drop a tool into a tight spot, it can be catastrophic – or at the very least, costly. If a socket falls into a cylinder, for instance, it could destroy a piston, break valves and tear up the cylinder wall if not retrieved before the engine is started. You may have to retrieve the tool, a time-consuming (read expensive) proposition.

Airplane mechanics cannot button up a job until every tool is accounted for, and most automobile technicians also follow this practice. So should the do-it-yourselfer. Manufactured for Chicago-based LINK Tools, Roberts’ new invention locks each component of the socket wrench system to the other while providing one-handed quick release. Instead of a spring-loaded ball to retain the socket, Roberts’ new tool uses a pin that jams into the socket at an angle, forming a wedge. Tugging on the socket only locks the pair tighter. But by pulling up on a ribbed collar, the pin is released and the socket drops off.

As a kid, Roberts said he enjoyed working with the tools in his father’s lawnmower repair shop, which he ran from his home in Gardner, Mass. “My father was very mechanically inclined. I spent a lot of time watching him, “ Roberts said. “He had to sometimes make his own tools. I just got used to him doing things with his own hands, and I guess I came by it naturally.”

“I always worked on my own bicycles and motorcycles, but sometimes like everyone else, I had problems getting the sockets off or on. Your hands are all greasy and oily, and it gets frustrating.” In 1962, the 17-year-old high school grad began working on the quick-release ratchet.

For months, while working as a clerk in the Sears store in Gardner, he pondered the possibilities before building the prototype. They at 18 he applied for a patent and, almost as an afterthought, showed it to his supervisor at Sears. “He sent it on to Chicago as an employee suggestion,” said Roberts. Eventually, the teenager heard from a Sears attorney “that they were looking into it with some interest.”

Though there was nothing like it on the market, the Sears attorney said the idea wasn’t new “…and it would only sell to the extent that it was promoted.” The lawyer suggested that the company would put it on only a minimal number of units. Roberts didn’t discover until later how interested Sears was. Without telling him, the retail giant had hired Roberts’ patent attorney to finish the work on the wrench.

Unexpectedly without legal representation, Roberts was persuaded to assign his rights to Sears in exchange for a royalty of 2 cents a unit up to $10,000. It took the company less than a year to sell 500,000 quick-release ratchets – enough to pay Roberts his 10 grand. According to Roberts’ current attorney, John Davidson, Sears was selling about 5 million ratchets a year during the life of the patent.

Roberts joined the Air Force, and it was while in the service that he was advised to get a good lawyer. Roberts hooked up with Louis Davidson, an aggressive lawyer who sued Sears, charging patent infringement. Upon his death his son, John, took over and got a settlement in a case that shuttled back and forth between a federal court and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Both sides were barred from discussing the settlement.

After his stint in the Air Force, Roberts ran a convenience store in Tennessee. Later, he installed security systems and began his own security alarm business, which he still runs. His lifestyle has not changed. Jump ahead 40 years. When Roberts developed his new tools, he contacted Davidson, the lawyer who helped him, in 1988. “He was kind of the catalyst,” said Roberts.

Bob Weber is an ASE-certified Master Automobile Technician, having recertified every five years since 1978. Contact him at MMTribune@netscape.net .