in Small Business

Issue No. 2 - September/October 2001

Smooth Operator’s Sanding Success

Fans of Tim ‘the Tool Man’ Taylor will warm to this episode immediately. Until quite recently, fabricators of countertops for commercial premises had to finish these very large surfaces with puny six or eight—inch rotary sanders.

Frustrated by this multi—hour task, solid surface fabricator Jim Riley determined to find a faster way to do the job. By fixing four rotating disks together in a revolutionary prototype, Jim created a 15 inch appliance which does the work almost four times faster than traditional sanders. The design has set new benchmarks for finish quality, ergonomics, time management and dust extraction in the solid surface finishing industry.

Rather than taking the concept to a manufacturer, Jim and partner, Sue McNair decided to commercialise the SMF—200 machine themselves, forming Newsworthy Pty Ltd, the parent company of Surcare Australia, in 1999.

“We loaded the car with units and went out to see other fabricators directly,â...

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