Who invented the pull-tab opener?

Inventor Ermal Cleon Fraze, nicknamed Ernie, was born in 1913 in Indiana (USA). He first studied at Ohio Northern College, then graduated from Flint (Michigan) General Motors Institute as a mechanical engineer. One day he went on a picnic in 1959, he opened his beer with the help of a car bumper and came up with the idea of ​​the pull-tab.

Ermal Cleon "Ernie" Fraze (September 16, 1913 – October 26, 1989) was an American engineer who invented the pull-tab opener used in beverage cans.

Canned food hit the market in 1812, but drinks weren't sold in cans until the 1930s. The first beverage cans were made of steel and opened with a so-called "church key", a tool that punched holes in the top of the can; however, a second hole was required on the other side of the box to allow air to flow freely. At the end of the 1950s, steel cans were replaced by aluminum cans; it was easier to open the aluminum can, although a separate opener was still required.

After a while, trying to sleep on a night he must have had too much coffee, Fraze began to consider making a lever arm attached to the can, to eliminate the need for a separate opener. His idea was simple—make a round-shaped tear strip at the top of the box and a lever handle to pull it out. But the engineering was not that simple. Fraze, founder of Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing, had the required metalworking experience, and was granted a patent for a "tear-open decorative cap design" in 1963.

Fraze's decorative design consisted of a more or less rectangular metal piece (useful as a lever, but difficult to pull) and a keyhole tear strip. The real revolution took place in 1965, when Omar Brown and Don Peters simplified the tear strip on the can by turning Fraze's piece of metal into a ring—in which a finger can fit—into a ring; they patented both ideas to Fraze. The pull-tab did its job perfectly, but there was a lot of sharp-edged garbage coming out. Then, in 1973, Brown took the idea a step further when he pioneered the push-in-retract and snap-in lids. (The patent application for this invention was also filed in the name of Fraze and the application was accepted in 1975.) Thus, while the easy-opening feature was preserved, the garbage problem was also solved.

In 1990, Robert DeMars and Spencer Mackay (both USA) patented their invention, which they said eliminated this problem, noting that it was difficult "for the elderly or those with rheumatoid arthritis and similar problems" to open cans by "pressing and pulling back". The innovation here was to make a slight protrusion called the moving ridge. Thus, when the pull tab was turned to the right or left, it would rise above these protrusions, the ring would rise enough to fit under the finger, and the rising ring would also break the seal and initiate the “push-in” part of the operation.

DID YOU KNOW?

The top of the cans is made narrower because this section is made of steel, which is thicker and is the most expensive part of the manufacturing process. The gradual narrowing of the box reduces the size of the top by 20 percent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2005/02/06/the-inventor-who-pulled-back-the-tab-and-found-millions/bbafa67f-e2a3-449b-ad4b-5caa76f5d076/