Tony W. Helm, Mechanic, and his Beguiling 360* Swivel/Flex Drive Joint

[Private Lugnutz]

If you were following along in my “A Tool Scrounger’s Delight: Old Hardware and Salvage Company Going Out of Business Sale” thread, you know that I snagged this rare Blue-Point GA-290 swivel joint.




If you’ve never seen one before, each half swivels 360* independently of the other, resulting in hundreds of angular combinations. They were intended for impact use, but recognizing their dual utility for manual drive tools, and perhaps their future renown and popularity among mechanics in that regard (besides their incredible flexibility, they are easy to operate and soft in the hand), Snap-on also advertised them in that section of their 1967 catalog.



But that’s where the story only starts to get interesting.

First of all, that’s the only Snap-on catalog I can find the Blue-Point GA-290 (or its 3/8-inch drive cousin, the GA-293) listed in, which might help explain their rarity, and also their typically three-digit price tag when they do show up in places like eBay. (There is a BIN right now for $132.) I paid $36 for mine, but it was the last day of the blow-out and everything was 75% off. It was tagged $144.

Secondly, it wasn’t made by Snap-on, as I mistakenly thought. GJ member 3baygarage has one with a red rather than a gray composite housing, marked “Helms (with a missing, implied apostrophe) Tools” / “Chicago, Ill.”.



He also posted a photo of this gray one from Worthpoint, with a “Helm Tools” logo and a part number PFD-90.



And he thinks Helm made these for others well, including MAC.

That sent me down a rabbit hole from which I have only partially emerged.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Meet Tony Helm!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Information outside of that 1964 Ebony article – dedicated to successful African-American entrepreneurs, is hard to come by, unfortunately.

By far the strangest thing about this tool is the patent situation.

The patent number stamped on found examples of the tool (2,895,314), granted in 1959, is actually Helm’s second patent...





...and an improvement on the first (2,760,358) granted in 1956.



The thing is – the tool doesn’t look or function like either of those patents!

Those patents are single- and double-ended ball joints that rock from one inset to another. You can tell the GA-290 has ball bearings because of how smoothly it swivels, and if you read the fine print caption of the photo in the 1964 Ebony article that shows Mr. Helm supervising two women in his factory it says they are “installing ball bearings.”

Examples of the tool are also marked “OTHER PATS. PEND.” But I have been unable to locate a third patent for a swivel or universal joint credited to Tony W. Helm or his companies, and there may never have been another one granted.

This anthology of African-American inventors talks about only three patents – the two universal joints, and the design for an automotive suspension (2,793,874).



And the Tony Helm Google Patents page agrees with that.



I thought about that automotive suspension (it was for an independent suspension) containing something he parlayed into the Helm Tools Power Flex Drive PFD-90/Blue-Point GA-290, but it was granted in 1957, prior to the second universal joint patent number found on the tools and granted in 1959, so it could not have been the patent that was apparently pending.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

To re-hash then, he patents a swiveling ball joint in 1956, an improved swiveling ball joint in 1959, and he is the subject of a 1964 major magazine spread for a third ball-bearings based swiveling ball joint (the PFD-90) that he is just starting to produce en masse in his own factory, ostensibly the Helm Tools, Inc. or possibly the Helm Time Saving Tools, Inc. mentioned in much later articles.

In 1967 he is ostensibly making them for Snap-on, which is branding them Blue-Point GA-290, and perhaps others. That same year, just three years after the 1964 Ebony spread, Helm Tools, Inc. received a loan from the Small Business Administration for $49,000. Maybe he was expanding to meet demand.

But I can't find anything else. No record of direct sales. No advertising in trade mags. And by 1973, one of his companies – Helm Time-Saving Tools, Inc., was the subject of some kind of unknown corporate action in Delaware.



And in 1976, Tony Helm and both his companies were in violation of Section 12A of the 1953 Illinois State Securities Act, which looks to me like he was in trouble.



I have requested that both of those books be unlocked by the Google Books team and will report back - hopefully with more, when I hear from them.

 

[kbeefy]

but have you used it yet?

 

[four.cycle]

wow. amazing find there, Private Lugnutz.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks, 4.c. The coolest part is that the backstory is even better! Sometimes a find just keeps giving.

 

[3baygarage]

That’s very interesting about the history. The photo is great. Thanks for researching. Hopefully some more info is out there.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

If you mean the EBONY magazine article photos, I was flabbergasted. I went from thinking these gems were made by Snap-on to discovering they were invented and made by a black blue-collar mechanic inside of a few days!

I already heard back from the Google Books team. They unlocked the State of Delaware 1973 action - he hadn't paid his taxes in three years so they repealed his charter. They also unlocked the SEC 1976 action, which was basically shutting him down from doing any business of any kind. So it looks like it all started falling apart for him in 1970 and was finally over in 1976.

One of the remaining questions is - what happened between 1964 (when sales of his own unit were booming), 1967 (when he was selling the units to Snap-on, at least...), and 1970?

Speculation has to fall on the tool itself. Maybe they failed (meaning, broke) at an alarming rate. Snap-on dropped them after a year, apparently. And they are as rare as hen's teeth, implying they weren't made for many others for very long, and many were discarded. So, very flexible, helpful, and easy to use, but maybe not so robust.

The other question is - since the Power Flex Drive doesn't resemble or function like the previous patents, and it has a "PAT. PEND." marking on it, implying he may have used the previous patent number on it just for some level of protection - what is that mysterious third patent?

 

[four.cycle]

so.... ingenious inventor, but not a really smart businessman... ?? :

 

[2oolhound]

Very interesting. It was originally designed as an impact tool so it's unfortunate if it was too weak. The part about his design being used for an auto suspension makes me think of the constant velocity joints (U-joints) used in vehicles since the late 70's. They would allow for independent rear suspension in driven axles or the independent suspension front drive axles in AWD vehicles as well as how they began use in regular drive shafts. They utilize sliding ball bearings to provide smooth power throughout the offset drive motion unlike the pulsating power cycle of U-joints. Perhaps his family is sitting on a lawsuit there.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

They utilize sliding ball bearings to provide smooth power throughout the offset drive motion

Very interesting, 2oolhound. As I alluded to in post #3, I was wondering if there was any design commonality that he may have leveraged, but the indy suspension patent was granted before the second universal joint patent. Maybe there's something there ( a reissue?) I am just not seeing.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

so.... ingenious inventor, but not a really smart businessman... ?? :

Maybe. But how do you screw up something on the business end so bad that Snap-on doesn't re-order? And why wasn't it copied in the 80's after the patent expired? Helm's other patents were cited dozens of times in later patent submissions by the likes of Ingersoll-Rand, Sangyo, Sunnen, MATCO, and others. I'm still thinking design flaw. Incredibly flexible, but perhaps weak. But I don't know that. Just conjecture.

 

[2oolhound]

I don't know much about patents but I had the thought - what if he fell victim to some shrewd unscrupulous competitors. A number of things could have happened.

It would be interesting to lock one end in a vise and measure torque with a torque wrench (as much as you dare) just to get an idea of how robust it is.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Oh, I wish I had two! I'd do some experiments.

 

[Cruzan80]

So there is essentially two fittings inside, one in each of the halves that match up o the angle of the male/female halves? And they are on ball bearings? Does it have a "tooth count"? Would think that is the weak point, where the angle points meet. Otherwise, I don't see how the power is "driven" from one to the other.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

One of the reasons I want to find the patent is to see what's going on inside! If I had a second one, I'd probably try to take it apart somehow.

The male half (1/2-inch drive stud) is connected to the female half (1/2-inch drive opening) and those do not turn independently of each other. But they turn as one independently from their respective housings, in both directions. You can hold the housings stationary and turn the internal drive unit. And the two housings turn 360* independent of each other. If you hold one half, you can spin the other half, and vice versa.

No discernible teeth. Smooth as butter. But you can "feel" and hear the ball bearings.

 

[Mr.zippy]

Interesting read! I wonder if Koken “borrowed” from this invention?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

That looks like his first and second patents (see post #3), which MAC and many others made, and many others cited in their patents, as I alluded to just a few posts ago. I don't have an example, but I've seen them. Those ball joint balls roll into a number of notches in the middle piece openings, right? So, 360, but a defined number of positions in that full rotation, right? Please confirm.

 

[Cruzan80]

Sorry, tooth count was the wrong wording. My initial thought was essentially two sets of bevel gears, with ball bearings between them and the housing.. If you hold one end (say female end), and rotate the other housing, does the drive end rotate? Of so, that would seem to imply some kind of gearing/spline between the coupled piece and the drive end.

It would explain the possible disappearance so fast, as I could easily see the splines of the gearing being chewed up with an impact.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

If you hold one end (say female end), and rotate the other housing, does the drive end rotate?

Yes, in the opposite direction, and geared much lower. I wish I could find my kid's GoPro. I'd make a video. I've been meaning to get one anyway. Maybe 3bay will describe it better.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...and perhaps others.

Thanks to @M-EGT, we can add Thor Power Tool Company, model number 26404, to the list. X-posting his thread here.

To re-hash for the TL;DR types, the only units I have been able to document are the in-house Helm/Helms, the re-branded Blue-Point, and now this Thor. @3baygarage has mentioned that he has seen a MAC, which I wouldn't doubt, though I was not able to locate a photo of one when I looked.

EDIT:
It's the same production variant as @Old Radar's Blue-Point GA-290, with those bands in the middle hiding the recess where the two halves meet, linked on the Snappy thread here.

 

[four.cycle]

Independent Pneumatic Tool Co. "THOR" brand Universal Joint (patent 2895314)

 

[Private Lugnutz]

In searching for historical record of @M-EGT 's example, patented and made for Thor Power Tool Co by Helm Tools, I ran into the same references I used in my deep dive upthread, but Google Books gave me a little bit more of a snippet view this time, which I was able to parlay into three additional snippets, which, when pieced together, provided an interesting little factotum of activity after the invention, patenting, manufacture, and apparent collapse of his universal joint enterprise and companies.

Apparently he tried to sue NASA for ripping off his third patent for the Moon Buggy suspension.

 

[four.cycle]

^ The timing here is uncanny. @M-EGT just posted the Thor unit 04/07/26. I followed up on it, dove into the rabbit hole, found everything I could find, and shot it off to datamp.org.
The post in that thread earlier this morning brought me here, and reminded me that I'd already done the homework on the Blue-Point and Helms, and had already sent all that in, but somehow missed the connection to "Thor" at that time (five years ago, and it's still not showing up at datamp.org.)
This begs the question: who else was he manufacturing the unit for?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

@M-EGT just posted the Thor unit 04/07/26.

Yes, since I just X-linked his thread to this, my Helm deep dive thread in post #22 above), and the X-link in reply to his thread that you followed to get back here to the Helm deep dive thread was also mine, I am aware of that. I'm not sure why he didn't post the Thor unit here, but no matter, his post/thread and my deep dive thread are now connected.

...reminded me that I'd already done the homework on the Blue-Point and Helms, and had already sent all that in,

What "homework"?

When you first posted here in my Helm deep dive thread (see post #6, and again in post #10), you didn't indicate any prior awareness of Helm and this tool, and you have not posted any information since then.

If you have found information that I didn't already find and post about Tony Helm, his patents, his companies, his production for Blue-Point, his ostensible production for MAC (as reported by 3bay), and his legal woes, all contained in posts #1 through #4, you should post it here.

...but somehow missed the connection to "Thor" at that time (five years ago),

No connections were made to Thor back in 2021. The connection was just made by @M-EGT when he found it and recognized that it was the same as those produced by Helm for Helm and also for Blue-Point (and ostensibly MAC).

 

[Zrxrunner]

OK, I know nothing about any of these tools or connections... except pointing out that the Helms logo looks very comparable to the early MAC logo. Looking at Lugz last pic in the first post. Probably has nothing to do with anything lawsuit related, but just kinda funny.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

....the Helms logo looks very comparable to the early MAC logo.

Very interesting observation, Z! I agree. Except for those radiating hash marks, it mimics the entire design.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Here they are together to accentuate Z's point. In all the info I have amassed above in my research, I haven't found anything connecting them, or Helm in trouble for mimicking the design. I'm inclined to think it's just a case of a small startup guy appropriating the design. Since we haven't been able to find any examples stamped MAC, made for MAC, I'm wondering if the stories of MAC units might not be a case of someone confusing the Helm Tools logo units with the MAC Tools logo.

 

[Beerhippie]

Very interesting. It was originally designed as an impact tool so it's unfortunate if it was too weak. The part about his design being used for an auto suspension makes me think of the constant velocity joints (U-joints) used in vehicles since the late 70's. They would allow for independent rear suspension in driven axles or the independent suspension front drive axles in AWD vehicles as well as how they began use in regular drive shafts. They utilize sliding ball bearings to provide smooth power throughout the offset drive motion unlike the pulsating power cycle of U-joints. Perhaps his family is sitting on a lawsuit there.

My '48 Willy's PU had ball-bearing CV joints in the front steering knuckles. I doubt they were aftermarket. This was in '83. Kind of blew my mind, as I associated CVs with modern cars.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Interesting re-reading the lawsuit comment at the end of @2oolhound's post given the info I just found and posted about Helm trying to sue NASA.

 

[M-EGT]

I'm wondering if the stories of MAC units might not be a case of someone confusing the Helm Tools logo units with the MAC Tools logo.

That would be my guess, especially if going off of a memory from many years ago. They do look similar

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...especially if going off of a memory from many years ago.

Zackly!

They do look similar

I'm leaning toward blatant. One of those things you don't see until someone else points it out and then you can't unsee it.

 

[ecotec]

Deleted