The "Ask Nathan a Question" Thread

Nathan,

There has been a bit of discussion of your product design achievements in the Random Thoughts Thread, and I figured I should ask you here in lieu of that thread.

What would you say is your crowning achievement outside of the knife industry? You have developed some quite facsinating products/processes/designs in your past, but if you had to say the one design/product/process you are most proud of what would it be?
 
JearBeatus48 said:
Nathan,

There has been a bit of discussion of your product design achievements in the Random Thoughts Thread, and I figured I should ask you here in lieu of that thread.

What would you say is your crowning achievement outside of the knife industry? You have developed some quite facsinating products/processes/designs in your past, but if you had to say the one design/product/process you are most proud of what would it be?
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This is an interesting question for me.

That would probably have to be the soap foam spraying system we developed for Ecolab, Kay chemicals in Winston-Salem.

They have some really well designed chemicals, that work well and are safe, and some high quality competent staff, but they didn't have an internal engineering staff to develop complicated apparatus, which is where we came in. Actually I think we initially started working with them to make a soak tank but then the foam system came along.

The challenge was to take a detergent and convert it into a foam that would linger so it can be sprayed on surfaces to achieve the chemical contact time it takes to break down soil and sanitize commercial kitchen equipment.

We took this soap, that did not contain foaming agents, that was used at only 1/2 oz per gallon, and made it into a thick foam that would adhere and soak odd surfaces. This was not trivial work.

There are a lot of variables and interdependencies between these variables to make a thick stable foam rather than the thin watery milky product they had when we arrived. We did a lot of R&D. Everything from mechanically producing this foam in a simple elegant system to spraying it in a way that you didn't tear it apart and you could get smooth even coverage. It was a big project it took a long time and we did a lot of work. The end result was really pretty amazing what we came up with. We ended up owning the IP and applied it to other systems such as detailing shops and Enterprise rental.

Lots of designs and prototypes. I sharpened my machining skills on this one.

At our peak we were producing and assembling about 3 million dollars a year in product that I had designed. I had a couple of machining centers there in the lab we were using to machine manifolds in PVC, dozens of custom injection molded components, and we hired a bunch of assembly people and made a lot of really cool stuff. I had worked at a manufacturing facility when I graduated school, helping grow it from 7 million dollars a year to around 22 million a year, but this was my first time actually building a manufacturing concern from the ground up.

Then I started making knives in my garage.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
This is an interesting question for me.

That would probably have to be the soap foam spraying system we developed for Ecolab, Kay chemicals in Winston-Salem.

They have some really well designed chemicals, that work well and are safe, and some high quality competent staff, but they didn't have an internal engineering staff to develop complicated apparatus, which is where we came in. Actually I think we initially started working with them to make a soak tank but then the foam system came along.

The challenge was to take a detergent and convert it into a foam that would linger so it can be sprayed on surfaces to achieve the chemical contact time it takes to break down soil and sanitize commercial kitchen equipment.

We took this soap, that did not contain foaming agents, that was used at only 1/2 oz per gallon, and made it into a thick foam that would adhere and soak odd surfaces. This was not trivial work.

There are a lot of variables and interdependencies between these variables to make a thick stable foam rather than the thin watery milky product they had when we arrived. We did a lot of R&D. Everything from mechanically producing this foam in a simple elegant system to spraying it in a way that you didn't tear it apart and you could get smooth even coverage. It was a big project it took a long time and we did a lot of work. The end result was really pretty amazing what we came up with. We ended up owning the IP and applied it to other systems such as detailing shops and Enterprise rental.

Lots of designs and prototypes. I sharpened my machining skills on this one.

At our peak we were producing and assembling about 3 million dollars a year in product that I had designed. I had a couple of machining centers there in the lab we were using to machine manifolds in PVC, dozens of custom injection molded components, and we hired a bunch of assembly people and made a lot of really cool stuff. I had worked at a manufacturing facility when I graduated school, helping grow it from 7 million dollars a year to around 22 million a year, but this was my first time actually building a manufacturing concern from the ground up.

Then I started making knives in my garage.
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This is fantastic and thank you for sharing. I do appreciate the time you took to respond

This just goes to show the little things we take for granted. A simplicity (from surface perspective) of a foaming soap and dispenser for cleaning took a lot of time, energy, componets, and money to develop and make useful. I am sure there are countless other items we all take for granted in our daily use.

Thank-you again.
 
Fonedork said:
David the Gnome ended with David and his wife traveling to the mountain to die and become trees
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Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty… and who the heck puts a cradle on the top of a tree? Nursery rhymes about throwing an old guy down the stairs…

All meant for little kids. I wonder what would happen if someone made that kinda stuff now? 😅
 
trevitrace said:
I thought I remember you saying to not let the schmoo separate, that it should be shaken often and regularly. Say hypothetically someone let their schmoo separate, is it still usable if I someone were to shake the shit out of it?
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I'm not really completely sure.

It's fine for it to separate some. It's going to.

But if it ever forms a solid concretion, I don't know that you're going to get that to go back into suspension. A month or two is fine. A year or two probably won't work. But I haven't tested this.
 
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