Background Story

For a long time, I’ve had a burden for American Manufacturing. My Mom and Dad worked at an automotive parts manufacturer when I was a kid. I’ve slowly watched manufacturing jobs leave America one plant at a time. As an engineer who has worked in manufacturing in the past, I knew I wanted to try to make a product in America to see what that process was like, and to see how much of our manufacturing capabilities we’ve lost due to the knowledgeable craftsmen retiring.

The Problem

Most people clean their grills with a wire brush bristle. These scrubbers are built so cheaply that they’re basically disposable. One HUGE issue with this is that the wire bristle come off and and up getting stuck in people’s throats. I’ve personally spoken with individuals that have had this happen to them. A quick google search or a conversation with any ER Doctor in your hometown will reveal how shockingly frequently this happens. I’ll avoid posting images here in case you’re squeamish, but I encourage you to look it up. Click here to google it.

The SOlution

A friend of mine, John Youngblood owns a Grill accessories company called JJGeorge. We were introduced to each other because John had a great idea, but he didn’t know how to make it. John’s idea was to use chain mail in a grill scrubber, to eliminate the potential for dangerous wire bristles to end up in your food prepared on the grill. John and I had some initial meetings and I decided to start Engineering the scrubber. You can imagine my surprise when I approached an injection molding company about making the molds for the interchangeable head and they told me “We don’t make injection molds in America… we’re not good at it. We have it done in China.” I thought they were joking… but they weren’t.

This concerned me, and so we spent about a year learning how to use a CNC mill, and we build the injection molds ourselves. The Stainless steel handle took several iterations to perfect. We even asked a small number of Smarter Every Day Patrons to test it and provide engineering feedback. The brush head is removeable and has integrated finger grooves so it can be used by hand on cast iron and pots and pans. The head uses welded chain mail instead of bristles. We strength tested several manufacturers and selected this particular chain mail for its size and resiliency. Here are some background photos of us building the thing.