From the realisation of an idea to a fully marketable product, Elise Hughan explores the long journey of the Cleverdick cabling tool.

When builder Peter Bowen and electrician Simon Pisoni first had the idea to create an easy-to-use rewiring tool, they never expected it to take them eight years to break into the marketplace.

The Cleverdick cabling tool was released as a marketable product earlier this year after a continuing process involving patenting attorneys, designers, and even a feature on the ABC’s The New Inventors in 2008.

Winning the People’s Choice award and also their featured episode on the show, Peter says the exposure and feedback from the program helped the tool gain more credibility.

“After going on The New Inventors we were introduced to some designers, who understood that this had to be a quality product that was aimed at tradespeople rather than the home handy-man,” he says.

Realised after a long a frustrating day in the roof by Peter, and Simon’s assurance that there was currently no professional tool available for the job, the Cleverdick cabling tool was designed to reduce the time and effort spent rewiring.

It consists of a simple rod-shaped device that can slide into a hole or opening and is secured by a soft grip cone or clamp. A laser beam is then aligned with the underside of the roof, so that when you go climbing into the dusty confines of your rafters you can easily locate where your wiring is to be fitted.

From here a chain and drawstring are threaded down, where the chain is gripped to the rod by a powerful magnet. The Cleverdick even comes with a long-reach tool for those confined roof spaces.

Back downstairs, the drawstring can be attached to your designated cord and the cable can be fed, from the top or bottom, to its designated wiring point.

“We find that a lot of the younger electricians are the ones that take to it because very often it’s them who will get sent up into the roof space to crawl around and send the cables down,” Peter says.

“We see that there is a huge potential out there but our problem is getting to those people and letting them know that this product exists.”

The boys wanted a product that could be knocked around in a toolbox and was sturdy enough to be dropped on the job, with a magnet that had the strength to capture the chain and not let go while it was pulled back through the wall. While the clamp mechanism was designed to be able to grasp onto anything from a piece of paper to a two-inch wall, the rod itself was altered to be able to fit into a drilled hole of just 16mm.

Market research and sending tool prototypes out to working electricians helped these two inventors assess the demand and interest in their product. And with an increase in data installation and cabling, Peter has faith that demand for their product will continue to grow.

“The process has been very slow and perhaps that’s because of our naivety of how you bring products to market,” he says.

“And I don’t want my wife to read how much its cost us.”

That said, Peter admits he wouldn’t have neglected the idea had he been aware of the inventing process, and encourages any other budding inventors to do their research before embarking on their own product journey. He even offers himself up as a port of call.

“On this process we were told that the idea is only 10% of the whole thing,” he says.

“I think if we knew what we know now, we would have done things very differently.”

Contact: http://cleverdicktools.com/index.html