Scotty Bear
February 4th, 2006, 11:01 AM
In 1894 Theodore Witte was applying putty around a window frame with a butter knife, and it was a messy job. Sometime later, while waiting in line at a bakery shop, he noticed a baker squeezing icing onto a cake from a tube attached to a nozzle . . . with complete precision. Witte went straight home and designed a “puttying tool.” He patented his idea of “using a ratcheted piston to force window putty through a nozzle to effect a smooth, weatherproof seal.” Witte never made much money on his invention, but to his credit, he got it right the first time; the caulking gun has changed very little since then.