Angler gets tired of tying knots in line - and invents a machine to do it

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By Elina Lappalainen
     
      This is the very essence of invention and innovation: an idea born out of frustration in everyday life is refined into a commercial product. The traditional "lazy man's discovery" comes into being when the inventor cannot be bothered to do something manually himself.
      Tero Liimatainen is a fishing enthusiast. He had one gripe with the sport, however: he dreamed of a good device for tying knots in his monofilament fishing line, for instance for attaching lures, but the otherwise comprehensive fishing tackle market had nothing of the sort to offer.
     
Liimatainen explained his product idea to Samuli Orko, who immediately got excited at the thought.
      Orko, too, had had enough of fiddling around with knots and cold fingers.
      And he set about developing a resolution to the problem - not just a handy aid, but something that would do the whole trying exercise on the angler's behalf.
      Samuli Orko, who had worked for ten years in industry on the acquisitions side, began to devote his evenings and his weekends to the task of pondering different models and playing with fishing line.
      "After a good many disappointments, I finally came up with an answer. I quit my job, as I knew rightaway that this was going to be a hit", says Orko.
     
The finished product is a palm-sized tool (see link) that makes a tidy Uni-knot (a.k.a. a Duncan loop or "hangman´s knot") in fishing line in a couple of seconds, with just a few clicks. And it can do it over and over and over again.
      The company behind the product intends to stay focused on the fishing tackle market, although in principle the very same innovation could conceivably used in an operating theatre by a surgeon stitching a patient up after an operation, says Orko.
     
The invention was ready for a patent application to be filed in 2005, and a year later the company Spinmade was set up to take matters to the next level.
      Alongside the original inventor duo, a group of design and industry professionals joined in, among them the brothers Ari and Aleksi Lasmo from the plastics design and manufacturing company Diretto, and industrial designer Jukka Enajärvi.
     
The industrial manufacture of the Click2Knot tool will start in the Helsinki suburb of Lauttasaari this summer. The product will go on sale to anglers later in the year.
      When things are up and running properly on the production line, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of units, estimates Orko.
      At that point automation in production has to be in good order, so as to keep costs within reasonable limits.
      Diretto will be making the plastic components for the device, employing robots formerly used by mobile handset mechanics specialists Perlos.
      Retail channels for sales of the device are being built up now, and the aim is to go international straightaway.
      Negotiations have already been held in the United States and Japan.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 5.6.2008
     


Links:
  Spinmade

ELINA LAPPALAINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
elina.lappalainen@hs.fi