Ring pulls for cans

I was reading today's Metro when I came across a "Weird fact of the day" stating that Richmond, Virginia was the place which had the first canned beer (Krueger's Finest, in 1935). It also stated that local inventor Dan Cudzik had designed the first stay-on, non-detachable ring pull for cans -- apparently the town's only other "claim to fame".

This was a new one to me, and indeed Daniel Cudzik, working for Reynolds Metals, applied in 1972 for an Easy-open wall patent. Here is its main drawing.

 

There is the familiar U-shaped design. Thank you, Metro.

What I had been familiar with was the first ring-pull itself, which dates back to 1965 with an application by a couple of Ohio inventors for a Ring-shaped tab for tear strips of containers. The story goes that Ermal Fraze was at a picnic and nobody had bought along a "church key", the tool with a pointed end that was used in the old days to pierce a can at two sides of the top. One opening was made big enough to drink from, the other was enough to relieve the pressure (otherwise beer went up your nose).

Anyway, Fraze wondered how to open his beer can. He ended up using the car bumper, with beer all over the grass. As so often, his thought was "there must be a better way". An opening device built into the can was needed.

One night not long after, goes the story, Fraze drank too much coffee and couldn't sleep. He went down to his workshop and tinkered away until he had worked out the basic principles of the detachable ring-pull. It helped that he ran a machine tools business and so knew what he was doing. 

In fact one source at least claims that Fraze also patented the non detachable ring pull, in 1977, but this would be later than the Cudzik patent. It does, however, look much more like the one we nowadays normally use. The Easy-open ecology end was in fact by Omar Brown but on behalf of Ermal Fraze as the applicant. Here is its main drawing.

Comments

[chicken recipes]

Very interesting, we don't take enough time to stop and think about the every day objects that surrounds us, it's great food for though. So much that we take granted and that we know nothing about. We often forget how much effort we're put to design everything that surrounds us! Great article.