As most of you know, I’ve been working on a boab for about 8 months. I’ve been thinking about it for about for about 4 years. The time was right last year to start developing it and it has come a long way. I have four different 3d prints of it as it has evolved. The last change was just a couple of weeks ago, but the change just “snapped” and it looks wicked awesome.
I’m not going to share specifics about the bucket just yet. We’ve got the utility and design patents pending and we’re PCT pending for international, but as much as the mold has cost, I sort of want it to hit the market hot as soon as it’s molded.
I’ve shared the details with a bunch of guys and none of them have said it sucks so that’s good. I’ve always been self depreciating so I’ve been paranoid that I’ve missed a vital flaw. But Luke wants to “sell the hellouttait” and PolznBlades said it has the potential to be the best bucket on the market. I think the UK guys will really like it for their residential routes. I hope so.
I’ll be sending samples out to @Chris, @Luke and @Trad-Man and @TheWindowCleanse and others as well as PolznBlades and Wagga. Is there anybody I missed?
The reason I’ve started this thread today is to bring you guys behind the curtain of product development and we’re sending off the first 1/3 payment on the mold. It’s a huge chunk of steel and we’re probably about 10-14 weeks out from having samples. Cutting out the steel is going to be a chore because I had no idea when I started how big this bucket is considered. But buckets are narrow and deep which making cutting them difficult.
I’ve also had to educate myself on injection molding and it’s a reason I have four 3d prints because my original design was impossible to mold. Most buckets are just straight pull molds (mine will be), the ninja is a vertical pull mold which is way more expensive but easier to machine.
I’m using a company out of the DFW area. I made a trip out last week to check them out and chat and I’ll probably be making a few more trips out there before it’s done. I also hope to have video of the first ones coming out of the mold.
For now, the only thing I’ll share is
- designed for an 18" mop, but will accommodate a 22" or 24" no problem.
- can hold a 36" ninja or a 10" brass
- can hold wagtails and excelerators (with pad)
- kind of sort of holds combo squeegees like the viceversa (those are weird)
- the belt strap is adjustable and replaceable
And that’s about all for now. Oh and colors.
We’ll probably introduce them in stages depending on demand because there is a cost associated with colors.
- Black
- Royal Blue
- Florescent pink (super bright, super cool - looking at you @K1ttenpantz!) - haven’t decided on whether to add sparkles to the pink because some guys might want to do an October promotion and sparkles might not be cool
- Red
- Florescent green (looking at you @Infinity)
Probably no desert tan unless there is a big demand for it.
If someone like Fish or Men In Kilts wants a custom color, I can do that but there has to be a minimum order. We can’t do Tartan.
Depending on how we do the color changes, there might be some “mutts” that have two colors. They usually clean out the machine before running another color (Red is the worst) but I’m thinking those mutts might be sort of cool.
