“... the only standard in worldwide use in the automotive industry."
David Beecroft, Society of Automotive Engineers
There is a part on all cars and bicycles whose design has not changed in more than a century: the tire valve. It was created by August Schrader (b. 1820), a German immigrant who owned rubber depots and warehouses in Manhattan. He became intimately linked with the rubber industry, making molds and brass fittings for Goodyear and the Union India Rubber Company. In 1890 Schrader received a request to research and develop an airtight seal for the newly developed pneumatic tire. Two years later, August and his son George applied for a patent for the Schrader tire valve.
The valve consists of a small brass air tube with its outside surface threaded like a screw. The hollow tube contains a metal pin in its center, running parallel to the tube. Screwing a pump onto the valve creates an airtight seal. Pumping air into the tire depresses the metal pin and opens the seal between the pump and the pressurized interior of the tire. Once the desired pressure In the tire is achieved, the pump is removed and the internal pressure of the tire, aided by a spring, seals the air tube from the inside. If the tire is inflated too hard, depressing the metal pin without a pump opens the valve and allows air to escape.
August Schrader's company is still trading under the name Schrader-Bridgeport and today is still making its universally employed tire valves.
