Mark Eyman

Retractable Pliers finial design for Boomerang Tool. This is their flagship product. This product is being marketed towards sport fisherman - pliers for removal of fish hooks and cutting line apparently are frequently dropped in the water and lost.

Exploded view of final retractable pliers design. Not shown is the Kevlar chord with end keyring. The spool assembly is supplied by a retractable chord product manufacturer.

This rendering was done of the pliers data we received from the client - the first concept was all metal and quite heavy. This second concept functioned, but had several failure modes - the main concern was the durability of the metal and plastic needle-nose parts.

We were asked to improve their existing design - the determination was made to make the needle-nose portion all metal and find a way to extend it to the handles. Above is a prototype and an analysis done after the metal parts were found to fail under extreme conditions.

I was asked to determine a different direction for a redesign of the previous prototype. Inspiration from various related products, and knowledge of what was to be packaged, I created the three concepts above for the client's consideration.

The top image shows the conceptual steps made to improve the original concept. In contrast are the lower renderings of the internal metal parts for the new re-design. These parts were designed to be manufactured, assembled and shipped, so that the other plastic components could be assemble later.

The top image is of working prototype we used to finalize some of the remaining structural and functional issues. Below is a set of comparative COSMOS FEA analysis done for me by our Head Engineer to help address a life-cycle issue in the design of the new metal parts. The next image is an action plan for improving the locking mechanism for the chord lock, which was an extremely difficult packaging consideration.

Above are several images of the product as it being produced today, along with shots of the packaging and website (done by the client), as well as a few images from their last trade show. One next step for this tool is to replace the aluminum with glass-filled nylon (which is what most of the other parts are made of) for a lower-cost tool (it currently sells for $34.99)