In my career before Alpacas, I was fortunate enough to work with my Dad for 31 years in a successful family owned tire mold manufacturing business, Mogadore Patterns. The tire mold industry is a very technical business that involves a high degree of accuracy, working to .001" tolerances. A good knowledge of engineering and reproduction methodology was a requirement for success.
In my new alpaca life, routine teeth trimming is a necessary herd maintainence chore . Well, to make a long story short.,....My friends at DayStar Alpacas encouraged me to design a better tool to trim alpaca teeth. Since I had a unique combination of knowledge and skills , I set out to develop the Tooth-a-Matic. Once the first prototype model was assembled, our friends at TinkersCreek Alpacas volunteered to try the new device on one of their girls!. Admittedly, a few glitches, but it worked! I learned from the prototype test that I needed to implement the utilization of the thinnest cutting wheel on the market, to speed up the cutting process and avoid overheating teeth. Vwhalla! Behold, The Tooth-a-Matic
The Tooth-a-Matic was designed with the following Objectives
-Design a tool that could drastically cut hours off the alpaca breeder's teeth maintainence schedule
-Keep it as light as possible
-Keep the tool affordable
-Choose a grinder with ease of operation , and lightest weight possible
-Make the tool safe , with no chance of harming alpaca
-Limit the heat build up on the alpaca teeth avoiding the killing of teeth roots
-The tool must be extremely fast to limit stress on Alpacas
-Keep tool air flow out of the eyes of alpacas
- Design Flexibility to allow the tool to adjust to teeth that fall out of normal sizes
-Design Flexibility to allow the tool to be used on llamas
-Design Flexibility to allow the alpaca breeder to adjust the teeth height to their preference
-Find the thinest, fastest, cleanest cutting grinding wheel available on the market
