They just keep trying to introduce innovation to into the balustrade market, and they keep failing. It’s getting to the point where Lizard’s Lair is going to have a weekly segment dedicated to glass stair balustrades and people who think they can do the job of commercial glazing, and it’ll just be their little corner of ‘fail’, because no one can do the job of a glazier, unless they already are one. Windows are timeless; you can’t improve on them.
This time someone went on the show to demonstrate their new and improved (snort) balustrade solution with little strips of velcro along its length, so that elderly folks can climb the stairs and have a bit of help along the way. One of the Lizards pointed out that the technology already exists, there’s a whole company making velcro handrails, and they even had Nicholas Risk as a guest judge on an episode last year, so how was this new fellow planning to get away with ripping off a famous idea?
The Lizards tore him a new one, and I imagine some Melbourne glass stair balustrade professionals had a good laugh. I know I did.
Also, it’s just a bad idea overall. This isn’t innovation; it’s just getting a bunch of velcro squares and sticking them to a handrail. They asked him how people were supposed to use that to climb the stairs, and he briefly came to life saying that it wasn’t done with a glove, like the one Risk Industries makes. Instead, you wear a belt with velcro dots attached, and sort of stick yourself to the glass with your hips, providing stabilization.
Okay, with a huge amount of refining, and a totally different product, in a totally different industry, this may stand a very, very small chance of being a decent idea. Maybe. But here and now, it’s just a weak attempt to rip off an existing product that doesn’t even result in anything useful.
Now, onto the next failed innovation!
-Cassie