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Archive for October, 2008

The Oven Claw Emerges–Part I

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

When I began to design the Oven Claw, I didn’t even know what it was called. I had seen one being used but Tanya didn’t know. It was simply their Oven Buddy. She knew that it was a great tool that kept her from burning her arms or hands when she needed to withdraw hot food from the oven. She swore by it. As time went on I described it to friends and acquaintances and asked them what it was called but interestingly enough, no one knew. I thought, “Well, if no one knows what this thing is called, maybe it’s not that widely known or widely used.” That led me to think that just maybe there was a market for it. Out of such ignorance, I decided to carve one of my own designs from soft pine. That version didn’t impress me but it did form the first rough pattern that I then worked from.

 

I continued to be bothered by the fact that I still had no generic name for it. Finding out what it was called, took a lot of digging but I finally discovered that it was called an oven rack puller / pusher. With that, I searched the internet and found eight to ten different designs; a few good looking ones, the rest almost toy-like. What most struck me, however, was how similar in design they were and how flimsy some of them looked. At that point, I hadn’t yet developed the design as it presently stands but I did think that whatever emerged my hot oven rack puller had to be sturdy enough to withdraw a hot oven rack laden with a large turkey. It needed to be elegant so that it would fit in a modern, high-end kitchen. Additionally, I understood two things:

 

  1. Develop my hot oven rack puller into a well known oven utensil and
  2. Create one that would virally sell in the high-end marketplace.

 

By that time my design had begun to emerge and soon I came to the point where I needed to take it to a woodturner to turn the first prototype. I was excited by the outcome. I showed it to friends and they were impressed and said that they wanted one. Since the first wood worker was not equipped to turn a larger number of them, he referred me to someone who was a professional woodturner. It was then that I had twenty five of them made and gave them away as Christmas gifts. Along with the gift, I included a brief letter asking for honest and clear feedback. Several people replied that they were happy to receive it but that they wouldn’t change from using their oven mitts. (Habit is sometimes hard to break.) Many more replied with very positive feedback, loving its design, loving its usefulness. One person replied that she had wanted something like this because she was tired of having burnt, dirty mittens lying around. It was enough to urge me onward. (Next installment – The Oven Claw Goes to Market – Part II)

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Going Quasi-Green – Scrap Is In

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Everywhere we turn these days, someone is jumping on the green bandwagon, claiming that their products are Earth friendly and yet there is still far too much waste that finds its way into the local dump. Too often manufacturers fail to see that scrap can be used. When scrap is used we can call it being quasi-green meaning that we leave a minimal carbon footprint or unnecessarily use natural resources.

 

Have you recently taken a look at kitchen utensil displays either online or in local stores? Bins and racks filled with plastic and other synthetics that are far from green. (Plastic is made from oil.) Take a look in your own kitchen. What is the ratio between plastic and renewable materials such as wood? Why are these utensils being bought so readily? Is it fashion? Ease of cleaning? There’s nothing else available? A large part of the reason why we see so many plastic utensils is that almost all of these utensils are manufactured in China, cheaply. Many have their production off-shore because there is a far higher profit than if they were to be made in the U.S.A. (See our earlier blog “Oven Claw: Made in the U.S.A.)

 

If these companies would just look around, they’d see that there is another way. Ages ago, when I was kid it was common to watch workers tear down old buildings board by board and stack the wood in piles. This scrap lumber would be used to build new structures. This is in stark contrast to today when bulldozers crush everything and large trucks haul the remains to the dump. During those early days people especially in the lower middle class used every scrap of various materials around the house. For instance, my mother saved bacon, steak and other drippings left after cooking. She used this grease to make bars of soap that for the most part she used for washing clothes. Every scrap of cloth gleaned from making our shirts was saved and eventually used to make warm quilts. There were many such examples of this kind of utilization in not only our household but others as well. There was very little waste. Reports indicate that since the early 1990s more and more companies are trying to use scrap instead of using only new materials. At the same time people purchasing products strongly prefer new materials and shun used.

 

What does all of this have to do with the Oven Claw? As we build out our market, we will use more and more recycled wood and ensure that our manufacturers use every scrap. As it stands at the moment, our manufacturer does not waste any part of the tree. In this way the Oven Claw is not what one normally thinks of as a green product but it is more akin to what I saw as I grew up; using every scrap possible. Why not change your buying habits and reject plastics? Use wood products in your kitchen and save our natural resources.

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