LooBlade - a revolution in toilet-cleaning!

LooBlade - life, the 'loo'niverse and everything...
about 10 years ago – Tue, Feb 09, 2016 at 08:15:08 PM

I thought it would be helpful to give you more of an overview, a guide to the LooBlade galaxy, as it were...the successes, activities and partnerships we're involved in as we go forward.  

We are extremely grateful for the support, understanding and engagement that you're giving us. It's easy said, but it is genuinely meant that you're an essential part of a team making this happen at all. 

We ourselves are deeply frustrated by the slippage in our program. Our tooling was originally planned for early-December and we had funded the first phase in early November before we even received the KS funds just to get a head start.  

I've explained previously how the pioneering nature of the form made that process less predictable in time terms than we or even seasoned tooling engineers expected. 

So to help contextualise our mission and give more of the confidence that I know as a frequent backer myself any project needs, I'd like to give everyone a sense of the bigger picture. How much ground we have covered since launching the project. 

Without even actively reaching out to any partners across the globe (which was to be part of our strategy in the next phase) we have been approached by many significant companies in the global bathroom/cleaning/homewares sectors.  We now have European, North American, Japanese, and Australian partners on board. And emerging relationships across most of the rest of the globe.  

We're particularly pleased to have formed a great alliance with husband and wife team of innovators, Dr Tom Sieber and Irina Breuer of Sauba Innovations GmbH, based in Munich, and to have the support and advice of their tooling and plastics partner nearby, Prover GmbH, run by the highly skilled Marvan Alsabtee. He makes very high-end parts for an extremely well known US electric car company, and also for some of the best sports cars in the world, built not far away in Bavaria, Germany!

Along with this quickly evolving support, we're in advanced discussions to supply to hospitals, hotels and major commercial players across all continents of our planet. Such wide deployment will create positive change in reducing bleach use, water wastage, and frequency of disposal. En masse that will add up to something quite significant across this 'pale blue dot'. (You won't often hear Sagan quoted in relation to bathrooms!)  

It is of course imperative that we get the product absolutely right for launch at that scale, never mind meeting and exceeding your expectations. Hence wanting to give you sense of being in at the first step of something hopefully important that you're fundamentally helping bring about. 

You'll have our grateful recognition on our website as a Founding Supporter, but more than that you have our deeply felt sense of camaraderie, joining together to create something that will actually have a positive impact; a tool that does something...that will be used every day! 

In other news, we’ve been entered for the ISSA Clean, European Innovation of the Year Award. 

We look forward keeping you updated and to completing this hike together with as few other hitches as possible! ;)

And when you get your LooBlade it will be one of the very first in the entire universe!

T3 arrival update
about 10 years ago – Thu, Feb 04, 2016 at 09:06:18 PM

The T3 samples arrived, but we are not fully satisfied with them. The finish is not quite up to specification. We are looking to acheive a specified surface finish called SPI- D1, a smooth matt. It's become a widely accepted finish on high end plastics products. The designation is a standard established by the Society of the Plastics Industry, and is used globally. 

Basically, there is too much of a sheen to the surface, as you can see in the image below. Also a slight mis-registration of the two materials still near the handle top. This therefore needs further work.

It's almost there, and for many it might even be satisfactory. As you'll understand, however because we are an innovative new product which seeks to change the culture of toilet cleaning and make it far less unpleasant, we very much need the product to match up to our vision. 

And, more importantly, to deliver something that we know you'll be more than delighted with. Please bear with us, as we're very close to where we want  to be, and we'll keep you fully advised. 

The T3s have almost landed!
about 10 years ago – Mon, Feb 01, 2016 at 09:32:46 PM

We ran the T3s on Friday, after completing the final finish to the tooling. 

This involves glass bead blasting using high-pressure air. It's an exacting process where the pressure, the nozzle distance and even the glass-bead size is specified. This gives a fine smooth matt finish to the tool and therefore the molded items.

We also got delivery of our specialist anti-microbial additive. This is made in Belgium (the land of great chocolate, TinTin and the saxophone). And also great anti-bacterial polymer additives!

The T3s are looking pretty darned good, and we'll have them in our hands by Wednesday this week. If we are happy, then it's green for go and we can firm up production schedules and shipping dates. 

We'll keep you posted!

Historic week for LooBlade!
about 10 years ago – Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 09:21:17 PM

In an eventful week, we've just had certification confirmed by TÜV Laboratories of Germany for LooBlade's antimicrobial action. We officially kill 99.9% of germs! That's all of LooBlade, not just the head, but the handle and holder too. This is achieved using a very safe silver/zinc based additive to ISO22196:2011

We've also concluded deals for pan-European distribution and sales with a major retailer based in Germany (hush, hush for the present). We're also ready to go in Australia and New Zealand with a great and early supporter, Sally Mortimer at Neat Freak (hey, Sal!)

And don't worry because we are nearing finalisation of deals in the Americas, Asia, Middle East and Africa. No discussions in Antarctica so far...!

Manufacture is now all about getting the quality of finish we want on the component parts of LooBlade. The tooling is complete and we're just about to run T3 tests. T2 proved the function and workability of the injection molding process and the 'feel' and function of the materials. We were very pleased with that. The finesse of the finish is now our focus as we work to achieve a 'high-end' surface appearance appropriate to LooBlade's design orientated approach.

We'll keep you updated as we head down the home straight. Thank you again for your patience and incredible support, and for helping us to make a small bit of bathroom history!

Tooling final sample run -T2
about 10 years ago – Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 06:44:43 PM

We've been in the thick of it perfecting the tooling!

As you can see from the videos below we have just run a complete set of samples of handle, holder and blade today. They are looking great. We discovered we need to tweak the molding process and equipment to include a cooling element within the blades central spindle hole former. This will make extraction easier and solidification quicker for volume production.  There is also a little more polishing to do as we aim to get a perfect smooth finish. 

In the general scheme of things, given how innovative and unusual the design is,  it has gone extremely well and very progressively so far no set-backs! It is just a little slower than we first planned.

We should be able to start production in earnest in a matter of days once we finesse the final details.

Thank you all again for your patience and support. :)