Scraping five layers of wallpaper – including an olive green floral pattern – off a farmhouse wall took hours.
That was just one of the projects that convinced Justin Kuhn there had to be a faster way to remodel homes.
The Hicksville, Ohio, resident wanted a machine to scrape away old flooring or wallpaper in the houses he was renovating and reselling, but he couldn’t find a device like that in any hardware store. So Kuhn, a welder by trade, decided to create one himself.
In less than two years, his invention – the Spyder Scraper – has made it to store shelves as far away as Australia. Kuhn said he has sold nearly 80,000 of the scraper blades this year, and Do it Best and Ace Hardware stores are stocking them. His company is on the verge of turning a profit, and Kuhn left his day job to market the Spyder Scraper full time.
Kuhn created a thin metal blade that fits into any reciprocating saw. The saw’s motion helps renovators and contractors quickly strip off linoleum or rubber-backed carpeting, he said. The Spyder Scraper also can be used to remove wallpaper or paint from plaster walls, although Kuhn said it may not suitable on softer surfaces such as drywall.
“I came up with a good idea, and it changed my whole life,” he said.
Photo by The Journal Gazette.
Inventor’s Scraper Hits Major Retailers
July 21, 2008 by Rich | 2 Comments
In Invention, Niche, Startup
Angela on July 21st, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Talk about finding your niche, hrm? I’m glad to see it worked out so well for him. It’s not all that easy to find unique places to expand a business into, and it seems he picked up a great opportunity.
Stewart on July 21st, 2008 at 10:02 pm
What a great example of finding what annoys you most about a current project and turning it into an opportunity!