BBQ Utensil Questionnaire - Nottingham Trent Design Student

[Catsup and Mustard]

I only use tong's indoors and out.
Fish never a issue, and nothing wrapping in foil won't fix.
Bottle opener I don't drink

Philip

[Heathrow_BBQ]

i like scissor tongs

[Tiny]

Young fellow,
An Omnitool this certainly is not, it seems to be a stick with interchangeable heads. "You just need to slide your thumb" oh really? I think not Sir, I believe cranial detachment can be achieved with a single slide of the thumb but then you are the proud owner of an stick, not even a poited stick as the great Eric Idle might suggest.

Stick in hand, as it were, you go looking for the appropriate head, steady now, and if you are some way into the bbq event and are on second usage of your noggin of choice it will be covered in residual filth. if you are the possessor of only one arm, monlimular if you will, this tool is just taunting you with its multi headed fiddly nature, omnitool? nay sir only an omnifool would go this way.........

Cheers
Tiny

[Tiny]

On a more practical note why not play to the very male biased nature of bbq.........

The BBQ hard bastad range
Forged fromKevlar these are built to last, virtually indestructible and impervious to heat these are the tools of choice for the real man who always gets the grill.......

<voice over plays to shots of square jawed hunk working the grill under the blazing sun, end point is attractive lady bringing cold beer and him nonchalantly knocking the top off with the matt black Kevlar Omnitool from the hard bastad range> credits....

Anyone worked out I had a dredful dull day at work and brain is now in freefall?
Cheers
Tiny

[BBQFanatic]

The trendhunter omni tool I would not buy for a number of reasons

1.) It has wood on it, wood burns. Wood doesnt like dishwashers
2.) They are flat grippers. Flat doesnt grip.
3.) There is no bottle opener. I need a built in hook feature to hang on the bbq

I want it to be able to :
- Move coals
- Pickup up cast iron grates (10kg+)
- Be able to pickup the smallest porkie and the largest dam steak or even a leg of lamb
- Be really tough
- Be dishwasher safe
- Be able to survive exposure to heat (ie no plastic)

[keith157]

The trendhunter omni tool I would not buy for a number of reasons

1.) It has wood on it, wood burns. Wood doesnt like dishwashers
2.) They are flat grippers. Flat doesnt grip.
3.) There is no bottle opener. I need a built in hook feature to hang on the bbq

I want it to be able to :
- Move coals
- Pickup up cast iron grates (10kg+)
- Be able to pickup the smallest porkie and the largest dam steak or even a leg of lamb
- Be really tough
- Be dishwasher safe
- Be able to survive exposure to heat (ie no plastic)

I agree with the bottom 3 I thought you had a "crew" for the other 3

Humour aside all valid points, everyone has slightly different needs but Cuan has hit on a few. I've seen torchlight tongs, wonderful IF, like the guy who sells them, you have a crew to painstakingly clean them for you.
When designing your super-tool that after a long day bbqing clean up is essential and if they are able to go in the dishwasher and or be scrubbed that's a basic requirement so no plated/cheap non-stick will work.

[Overgone5]

The butch manly theme is a must for sure, the general designs have been very broad and hard which is what I've been trying to achieve as this will assist the strength and integrity of the steel. Wood and plastic can stay at home as these tools are going to be heavy metal... I'm going to look more into cleaning tools as well, I was thinking about a bar cleaner which would be good to literally scrap all the junk off the bars when it's hot, however this may be possible to put this into the BBQ Wedge.

As for the Omnitool, I've been trying to work individual features into each specific tool that can assist you without having to go and grab a knife or a fork from the kitchen etc. So I've worked a serrated edge on to every tool which can be used to check the meat, see how it's cooking etc. The hanging feature has become the theme which binds them together, as so far I'm pretty set on getting these tools produced:

BBQ Wedge / Fish Slice
Features - Serrated Edge, Wedge Shape, Hanging Top, One Piece Steel, Bottle Opener Edge on the Wedge... This allow the food to be rested on one side for easy transfer. Heat Dissipation Holes

BBQ Tongs
Features - Serrated Edge, Grips on the inside, Curved tips for precision gripping, One Piece Steel, Bottle Opener, Heat Dissipation Holes. Hanging Top

BBQ Two Pronged Fork
Features - Hanging Top, One Piece Steel, Heat Dissipation Holes, Push system to get them damn sausages off.

BBQ Grabber
Features - Serrated Edge, One Piece Steel, Heat Dissipation Holes

The grabber will work with a separate grill system, in short these are propped up steel segments which you can put things to cook and then remove them all at once using the grabber. These devices are suited more towards people with smaller BBQ's, who perhaps aren't as comfortable at making use of the extreme heat of the BBQ allowing them to move everything quickly and easily without loosing bits off their Kebabs or getting their steaks stuck to their grill etc. When I've got some final technicals done I'll post them up here for you viewing pleasure,

Cheers again,
Mark H

[BBQFanatic]

They sound good - do we get a discount for helping out Let us know when you have something to show, you should get a receptive bunch once they can touch and feel it

[CyderPig]

Ditto that Cuan!!!!!
Si

[Overgone5]

Hello everyone,

Firstly thank you all for your assistance in filling out the questionnaire and generating certain ideas, it feels like it was yesterday I posted a thread on here unfortunately time is absolutely flying.

However, here are the final concepts - I took inspiration from what you had to say as well as those individuals who may only BBQ once a year. So in the end I wanted to make a medium to high end product that a less frequent BBQ'er could pick up and show off with - this was the way the project ended up going instead of making a utility which can do everything at once (The Omni-Tool).

They're made of 1.6mm Mild Steel which has been Gun Blued to give a blackened steel appearance *this is the process they use on air rifles etc*. The bottle opener element has been milled and a 0.3mm Brass Sheet element has been placed in this void. The above images are renders, however the physical representations are nearly finished but I thought I'd post them up when they're finished.

Thanks again, of course I'd love to hear your comments,

Kind Regards,
Mark H