My only hint is it has to do with finishing floors. If you've seen it before don't spoil it for others. Spending time with Dan Braucht recently has my head spinning. Every time I turn around it's something different. In fact I don't think he has anything any average finisher has. It's either something entirely new or a tool that's been modified.

Hey, Ken, I won’t give it away, but I’m impressed by the design he came up with. The guys I work with came up with their own version, but let’s just say that their design has a tendency to want to tip over, and that’s not a good thing. This is great!

If it's the tubes we're talking about I'm guessing something to save rollers in.

they are canisters to save t bar applicators in and keep them moist..

I have a bunch.

seems he modified it to be tandem.
I guess one for finish, one for sealer.
take up too much real estate in your average van already loaded in my opinion.

it should have a purge valve to let air out too.

since the rag is covering it..its an old heavy weight T bar..never see them any more..has the pole completely fastened to it..all metal

Yup, you guys know what it is. One for water based and the other for oil based.


I had fun with Dan the last few weeks and his ideas are brilliant but James you hit the nail on the head. A little background on Dan where some may see the light. He's isolated in a small market and doesn't know how most other guys do things. He has two trailers. One for installation tools/jobs and another for finishing. He has oodles of space for everything.

That's why when he rolled in the US sander on one of his dolly/carts I played the role of the average hardwood floor guy..



"But it won't fit in my van. There's no room."

Back to isolated. He hasn't seen how other guys work. I've watched well over a hundred installers in my time. He's seen a small handful, if that. I've also been to at least one NWFA school, but the main point with that is he's developed a great extended mallet and handle that goes on the Bostitch nailers. It's a great idea, but he doesn't know how most installers use the mallet so he developed the rubber part of the mal out of much harder material because he thinks it's only used for tapping the plunger.

He's already had one complaint as it began dinging up some prefinished material a customer was using. When he develops a tool/idea he often goes out and produces 50 or a hundred at a time to cut down on average cost. In this case the mallet wasn't well thought out. He definitely needs to retool the rubber part idea because of the large number of installers that use it for beating boards into place. And that includes the "masters" Daniel Boone and Frank Kroupa where I have video that proves that.

And about the TBar. You guys know I'm fairly ignorant on the finishing side but in the first video we put together I was under the impression there are several types of Tbars and this one "regulates the flow of the finish being applied" because of the weight of the tool. I also assumed it was a manufacturer finish specification. Made sense to me.

I know everyone does things a bit differently and there's definitely no lack of opinion with floor finishers as seen at the other forum if we can ignore the egos. What's the take on that particular issue?



Maybe it does? I didn't analyze it because Dan is hard to keep up with anyway.

James wrote:


My only experience with tubes prior to this year was the Bona plastic tube for water-based rollers. The roller sits in the middle of the tube, and there's air space around it on all sides. The ones that my co-workers have made are constructed out of plastic pipe material, so the tubes will stand up to oil poly residue, and paint thinner. There's no purge valve on them, but I haven't had a hard time getting the rollers in or out. The only problem is that we have to beat on the screw cap pretty hard to be able to twist it.

I had gotten away from oil poly almost entirely, so I just use foam pads for applying it, and throw them away after each job. These guys still use nothing else but oil, so they want permanent holders.

Alloy

The Purge valve does exactly what the problem you have is.

1)lets the air out which in turn keeps a more moist environment.
2) it lets the air out that will cause suction and difficulty opening.

As brilliant as Dan is he's probably got it figured out. I have it on video somewhere of the rollers bobbing up and down. I never had that mechanical mind such as what he has.