August 8, 2024 • 28 mins
Discover how KATO Fastening Systems revolutionized thread repair with their groundbreaking innovations! Watch as President Al Qaqish shares the inspiring story of KATO's journey from a simple idea to a global leader in the industry. Learn about their patented Tangless MRO/Thread Repair Kit and other game-changing products that offer superior locking force and unmatched quality. Don't miss this episode of Got Invention Show for a closer look at the brilliance behind KATO Fastening Systems!
https://katofastening.com/
Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/xoHuYPpzJsQ
--------------------------------------------
About Got Invention Show:
Welcome to the Got Invention Show!
Listen to inventors interviews sharing their invention story to the world! Are you patent pending? Do you have a prototype to show and demonstrate? Are you looking to earn royalties from your invention? Are you looking for a manufacturer? Do you want to raise money or find an investor? Do you want to sell your invention? Learn from other inventors or let’s see and hear about your big invention idea!
Show & tell us about your invention, have your very own video interview to be proud of! Your video can be used to: Post to your social media Add on your website Send to bloggers & editors Pitch to licensees or investors Listen to inventor interviews or sign up: https://gotinventionshow.com/
Your Host of Got Invention Show, Brian Fried. Brian is the host of Got Invention Radio, with interviews of high profile guests including the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Lori Greiner from ABC's Shark Tank, & over 150 individual interviews.
Brian connects and guides inventors to earn royalties from their inventions to licensees and brand properties looking for new ideas and intellectual property to expand existing or add to new product lines.
Inventor Smart: https://inventorsmart.com/
Host Inventor Expert and Invention Consultant Brian Fried: https://brianfried.com/
Check out the launch of a very exciting app, finally a community for inventors!! Our very own social media, networking, events and resources to help each other with our big ideas! The Inventor Smart Community app now available on Google Play or Apple App Store https://inventorsmart.app
https://katofastening.com/
Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/xoHuYPpzJsQ
--------------------------------------------
About Got Invention Show:
Welcome to the Got Invention Show!
Listen to inventors interviews sharing their invention story to the world! Are you patent pending? Do you have a prototype to show and demonstrate? Are you looking to earn royalties from your invention? Are you looking for a manufacturer? Do you want to raise money or find an investor? Do you want to sell your invention? Learn from other inventors or let’s see and hear about your big invention idea!
Show & tell us about your invention, have your very own video interview to be proud of! Your video can be used to: Post to your social media Add on your website Send to bloggers & editors Pitch to licensees or investors Listen to inventor interviews or sign up: https://gotinventionshow.com/
Your Host of Got Invention Show, Brian Fried. Brian is the host of Got Invention Radio, with interviews of high profile guests including the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Lori Greiner from ABC's Shark Tank, & over 150 individual interviews.
Brian connects and guides inventors to earn royalties from their inventions to licensees and brand properties looking for new ideas and intellectual property to expand existing or add to new product lines.
Inventor Smart: https://inventorsmart.com/
Host Inventor Expert and Invention Consultant Brian Fried: https://brianfried.com/
Check out the launch of a very exciting app, finally a community for inventors!! Our very own social media, networking, events and resources to help each other with our big ideas! The Inventor Smart Community app now available on Google Play or Apple App Store https://inventorsmart.app
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome to the gout Invention Show. I'm your host, Brian Freed,
and we always have interesting guests. We have some innovations
that start off with just an idea in their head
to building these amazing brands. And today we have Al Kakish.
He is from Caddo Fascinating Systems in Virginia. Welcome to
(00:40):
the got Invention Show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thanks Brian.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Great to be here, so Al, interesting story from you
and the company. Maybe you can start off by telling
us a little bit about yourself, who you are and
where you're from.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thanks. So, yeah, my name is Al Kakeish, originally from
New Jersey, went to Markers Universe in New Jersey, got
an engineering degree in mechanical engineering with a certificated aerospace
and worked actually for a company in Hasbro Kitesen, New
Jersey for about a year before I moved on to
(01:14):
Tocato Fascinating Systems. And yeah, I've been with Kato for
nearly thirty plus years now.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Wow, you can really appreciate all the products that you
offer from where they came from and just watching the
evolution of just building the brand and now being a
part of just kind of running the company is something
that probably you see in a different perspective than somebody
just starting out that way.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Oh for sure. Yeah, because you know, in the beginning,
it was just, you know, I was isolated. I was
in the engineering department, just focused on design part, working
on tools, and then that kind of brought into application side,
where I had to communicate with customers, talk about their
applications and provide solutions for their applications to then troubleshooting
(02:06):
customer problems, and then even training, then putting on presentations
in front of you know, like I can recall the
first time it was at Lockheed Martin and I had
to do a presentation as like thirty forty people, all
engineers and manufacturing people had to go in there and
do a presentation on the product. So it was kind
(02:26):
of like, yeah, hey, hey, you go go do this.
It was thrown into the fire kind of a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Very interesting. So, look, we can get a little bit
deeper about the innovation, how the company started with just
an idea and developed into building this brand. Why don't
we start off by just showing a little bit about
what Kado is about.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, So Kado really became known because of a product
called quailed read inserts and I got an image right
here of the product, and this product here on the
right hand side, you can see my mouse on hopefully
(03:08):
and with the metal down the center. That metal piece
is called a tang. And that product has been around
since the thirties. Company called Helicoil that invented that product.
It's used in aerospace and defense. A lot of companies
or a lot of people know about the product because
it later became a thread repair product, but originally it
(03:29):
was created for aerospace and defense to provide a stronger
thread in lightweight materials like aluminum, for example. And the
issue with the tang product is that you have to
orient the insert so that the tang is facing down
so that the tool can grab it, and then you
install it, and you have to go back after you
(03:51):
install it and break off the tank. And if it's
a blind hole, meaning the hole does you can't see
through the hole, you have to go back into that
hole fish out that tank. And we're talking about some
very small sizes here, thread sizes that are you know,
point zero zero eighty six in diameter, so very small stuff.
And so in the in the mid eighties late eighties,
(04:14):
Cado invented the tangless insert, which is the insert on
the left here, and you can see there's no metal
tang going down in the middle, and so instead of that,
there are actually drive notches on both ends of the insert,
and that allowed the innsert to be bidirectional, and that
was one of the benefits. The other benefit is once
(04:35):
the insert was installed, you no longer had to go
in and break off or retrieve the tank. And that's
that's the product that Cado really became famous for or
popular for, I should.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Say very interesting. So in aerospace and defense, where would
this piece be used?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, So to give you an idea, every every Boeing aircraft,
for example, probably has two hundred plus thousand of these
inserts all over the aircraft, from the airframe to any
kind of aluminum or magnesium housing or aluminum box that
(05:19):
houses electronics communication systems. Those boxes are mounted or have
fastened to something else, and you don't want to damage
those boxes, which in some cases could really cost thousands
of dollars to machine, because you're using a steel bolt
(05:42):
in an aluminum part. And so by putting these inserts
in to the aluminum or to the magnesium, you create
a thread that's actually stronger than the bolt, so that
if you were to let's say, torque down a bolt
or really tighten the bolt, overtighten it, you won't damage
or stripped of threads that are in this really expensive part.
(06:02):
You'll just snap the bolhead and then thread it out
and replace it. And that's the idea of using these
interests to provide a stronger thread than you would have
without using them.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
For the average personnel. You don't think about these things,
but you saying that thousands of these are used and
tens of thousands are used on aircraft and other types
of aerospace and different types of products and concepts out there.
I mean that's you don't think about it, but look
at how important this invention really turned out to be.
(06:37):
And it kind of evolves from the one that had
the kind of hook inside to not needing the hook.
And so before we kind of get a little bit
deeper into the story of this, maybe you could just
show us quickly some of the other products that you
have that Kato offers.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Sure. So, as I mentioned, our core product product that
we're really known for is the tanglessin so we've caught
always been making the tang style in sert since the seventies,
and it wasn't until like the late eighties or early
nineties that we really perfected the tangless product and really
introduce it to the market. Since then, you know, we've
(07:20):
come out with a product called lock one. So this
this product is really interesting as well. You apply this
to the end of any bolt or nut assembly and
it's just a standard nut, and it'll prevent that nut
from loosening free under vibration, so you don't you know,
it replaces things like double nuts or codder pins or
(07:41):
safety wire, and it threads on very easily and you
can remove it much easier to work with than codder
pins or safety wire for that matter. So that's that's
another product that we invented and offer. We also have
a whole line of tooling to go along with the
tangless product, and we've invented different tools over the years.
(08:04):
Uh this one here. Although we don't manufacture the electric driver,
you know, we we partnered with a company that specializes
in in manufacturing these drivers. However, they were manufactured to
our specification, so we work with them to you know,
request certain torque levels, to request certain speed levels, and
(08:29):
and they worked with us and this was this was
a project that actually took about three years of going
back and forth in development to really be able to
introduce it, and it's it's the first of its kind
in the market. No one else has this cordless drivers
out there, of course, but no one else has in
our industry has something like this where it has auto
(08:50):
reversing features. It works with two different styles of installation tools,
so that's that's another one of our products that we do.
And we have torque arms as well for holding the tools,
some manual tools that we offer as well. And then
it's the whole system. You know, it's called Codo Fascinating
Systems because it is a whole system with the inserts.
(09:13):
In order to install an insert, you actually have to
drill out a hole and then you have to tap
a hole, but you tap it using these STI threads,
So these are special taps that are used to create
the thread profile for the inserts to go into. And
then you know, once you do that, then you really
need to check the holes. And we have these STI
gauges and these are the gauges that actually check the
(09:36):
threads before you install the insert to ensure that the
threads are correct. And so these are some of the
products that we currently offer.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So cool. You don't think about these things, you know,
average consumers out there. This is all B to B industrial,
but it's very well needed and something simple that makes
a big difference in different industries. And it's interesting because
you and your company and the original owner had an
(10:08):
idea with the coil and then built this brand. So
out maybe you can kind of rewind back and start
off by telling us we kind of have an idea
of how the idea was came about, but what happened when?
And what was his name?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think so the Kado is actually very popular Japanese name.
It's common to like Smith in the US, you know,
so Kado is a very popular name. And so the
original founder of Kado it was Kado Spring Works Limited
(10:47):
in Japan. It was a spring company and fast forwarding,
and that was back in the nineteen thirties it was established,
and he fast forward to the seventies. Now his grandson
is in the business. His son was in the business,
and his grandson, Paul Cotto was in the business, and
he was young. He lived in California for several years
(11:10):
and he was approached by a company in California at
the time to make these inserts, to make these wire inserts,
and at the time it was the tanged one. And
so he went back to Japan and went to the
factories and said, hey, I have a customer that wants
us to make these inserts. And then you look at
them and they do look like a spring, So you know,
(11:34):
why not a spring company making these inserts. The wire
cross section is different. It's not round like a spring.
It's kind of a diamond shape, which is like a
thread when you look at a thread, that's what it
looks like. And so they went back and they developed
the technology the equipment to be able to produce a
tanged insert. And then it wasn't until the mid mid
(11:57):
eighties that two engineers from the company in California, Frank
Cascenza and Al Yamamoto. Frank had the idea to do
this tangless insert and to eliminate, you know, what was
seen as the the issues or the problems with using
a tanged product. How do we and you know, if
(12:17):
you think about inventions, most inventions are you know, to
resolve a problem or to you know, come up with
a solution to something that's difficult, Right, someone tries to
come fro an idea and that's how an invention comes up.
And this is no different. You know, there are the
tank as well as the tanged inserts are there. They
have their flaws and they're difficult in some certain applications
(12:41):
to use. So they came up with the tangless idea,
but they didn't know how to make it. So they
went back to Kado and they say, look, we have
this idea. We we need your expertise, expertise in manufacturing
to be able to produce this tangless product, and so
on a handshake, believe it or not, on a Handshakekado
(13:01):
in Japan invested almost a million dollars. Now think about this.
This is back in nineteen eighties. Money a million dollars
to develop equipment and it had to be built from
the ground up because there was nothing available and so
they had to design it and build it to be
able to produce a tangless insert. And although you look
(13:22):
at the inserts and you say, okay, they're very similar.
You know, one has a tang, one does not. The
manufacturing of the product is so different. The only thing
they have in common is at one point, at some
point during the manufacturing they get coiled like a spring.
Beyond that, it's very different manufacturing. But they did Kado
(13:43):
invented the equipment to do it, and the company in
California began selling tangless inserts in the late eighties early nineties.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Oh so, once they had the idea, they wanted to
get some sort of intellectual property, some patent possibly on it. Right,
So correct tell us what they did. They had the idea,
they built it out, they had the handshake, and now
before they bring it to market, is that when they
(14:16):
decided to file for a patent.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Now, actually, that's an excellent question. The patents actually were
applied for even before the parts were manufactured by Caddo.
I think the patents were they may have already been
approved by the time they approached CODDO or they were
in the process. So they've already applied for the patents
when they approached Caddo. So they took care of that
(14:39):
part of it before they even showed the manufacturing facility
what they had in mind. And they ended up getting
thirteen patents totally on the product for different aspects of
the product from the champer on the end of the
insert to the notches, and then the tooling itself because
(14:59):
the tooling was very innovative, very unique to the to
the product. And so yeah, so they had thirteen patents
on it and several international patents were applied and received
for the for the tangless product and Tangless itself. The
name tangless is a registered trademark.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I see that. Usually there's a TM, but when you
register it and you're selling it in commerce, it turns
into that R So you put that r H next
to tangles. So al as this product started to sell,
you showed us quite a bit of products that kind
of evolved from this, uh that are relative to the
(15:40):
industry wanting to build a brand. So tell us about
the innovation at Kado. You were kind of on the
on the other side, and you brought yourself up to
uh being a level of running the company as the president.
Tell us about the innovative journey of just starting off
with that one idea and now look at what you've built.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, so you know, when it was first started, you know,
really it was more about Okay, we have this product,
you know, how do how do you you know when
you invest all that money and you have a good idea,
that doesn't necessarily mean people are going to buy it, right,
It doesn't mean that the product is going to be successful.
It could be a great idea, but if people are
(16:23):
not aware of it, or people don't see the value
in it, then it's very difficult to get any kind
of traction or momentum. So the first thing we had
to do was we really had to go to the
National Aerospace Standards Committee the NASC and apply for a specification.
Because the product is sold and as I mentioned earlier,
(16:46):
predominantly aerospace and defense. They use parts that have what
we call Millspec Millspec parts, so they have military specifications.
The military is no longer doing specifications now they've become
aerospace specifications in the form of National Aerospace associations, and
(17:06):
so the NASC. We approached them with the product and
we actually demonstrated the product to Boeing and at the
time it was Texas instruments. Now they're a Raydon, but
it was Texas instruments, so people will remember Texas instruments
from calculators right back in the eighties. Yeah, yeah, So
we approached them, We approached their members on the National
(17:29):
Aerospace Standards Committee, and they looked at the idea and
they said, hey, this is this is not a bad idea.
But they wanted samples and they wanted to do their
own testing, and so we, you know, we provided them
some samples, and initially we only made four sizes. We
looked at the market, we said, okay, here's the four
most popular threat sizes. So these are the sizes that
(17:52):
you know, we need to focus on, and let's see
if we can build some momentum with those four sizes.
And they were sizes that act fully either both one
or both of the committee members. Boeing and Texas Instruments
requested and we provided them with the samples. We sent
(18:12):
the product out for independent lab testing to compare the
product to the existing standards for the tanged insert to
compare the vibration testing to the tanged inserts. So we
had to prove the customers that this product is as good,
if not better than the existing product, and they're not
going to take your word for it. So there's a
(18:34):
cost involved, right, There's the cost involved with the manufacturing
the product. Is the cost involved with the patents themselves.
There is the cost involved with doing independent lab tests
because you send the product out, you tell the lab
this is what i'd like, he has the specification, test
these inserts against this specification and please provide your results.
(18:54):
And we had to do all that, but in the
it was nineteen ninety nineteen ninety two the National Aerospace
Standards Committee published the specification in AS eleven thirty, which
is the standard, the aerospace standard for the unified sizes
like inch sizes of Tangles sensors. And that's how we
(19:17):
started this process moving forward.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And now you have all these other products. So as
you were innovating adding more products to your product line,
what is it? What kind of process do you have
internally as you're coming up with ideas, vetting them and
deciding if they're going to be manufactured and added to
your product line.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, so really the focus, honestly, for the first twenty years,
the focus was on how to expand the Tangles's product line.
There's this big market, we're just a small piece of it,
and how do we do that? And so it was
really about developing more sizes. And although it sounds pretty simple,
(20:01):
you know, okay, you just make it larger. The equipment
required is different, so you have to develop punch presses
that are different, that are heavy duty, you know, for
the larger sizes versus the smaller sizes, And so that's
really where the innovation is. It's really on the manufacturing side,
figuring out how do we make the insert smaller, how
(20:23):
do we make them larger, and then making them out
of different materials because when you try to coil stainless
steel versus trying to call phosphor bronze material, phosphor bronze
is much softer than stainless steel, so it behave differently.
That's really been the focus for the first twenty years
is really the innovation side is about manufacturing the product.
(20:44):
But once that was done, is then we look at, well,
what are the tools can we come up with for
a design for the product. Because initially we had one tool.
It was a simple tool. It was patented, but you
can use that tool in a handle for manual installly
and then you could take it out of the handle
and put into an electric driver and do it that way.
(21:04):
But then we needed to develop better processes and better
tools for higher volume customers and that's and that's what
we did. So for twenty years, we've really focused on
this product, try to get maximized the market for this product.
And now Tangles represents more than sixty five percent of
(21:24):
all inserts that are shipped in the North America. That's
US and Canada. So we've gone from zero to sixty
five percent. But it took a long time.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Well, congratulations on your success so far. So tell us
where you are right now. You mentioned decent, but you're
also expanding into other industries and how are you getting
the word out to continue to build your company.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, So now that we've you know, really have gotten
a large share of the aerospace and defense market, we
looked at where else we can grow. And area we
didn't really touch upon was the automotive market and specifically
the automotive aftermarket. And so in two thousand and sixteen,
(22:13):
I acquired a division actually from one of our former
distributors of the product. The business was sold and the
division they had for thread repair kits was kind of
like lingering on there, and I approached them and we
acquired that division. So we were very familiar with them,
they were already familiar with us, so it was very
(22:33):
simple to really incorporate them into our business and so
we ended up, you know, having a division called thread
Kits Company, which is now cow Too thread Kits, and
they produced stuff like this where they have a kit
and it has a tool, it has a tap that
you need, and it has the inserts. So we used
(22:57):
that market then to launch the first Tangless Pro Kit
and so this is a thread repair kit, but it's
for Tangless and so this would not even exist if
it wasn't for the automotive aftermarket. And to promote the brand,
you know, we did a good job over the twenty
years promoting it in the aerospace and defense industries, but
(23:20):
we really this is a completely different market. Nothing there's
no overlap whatsoever with the aerospace guys. And so we
started to sponsor professional motorsports teams and we sponsor if
you look at our homepage, you'll see we have motorcycle teams.
This is a HSBK Dukati. They're part of the Motor
(23:43):
America Superbike Series and they've been very successful. They utilize
our product to repair their motorcycles, threads and their motorcycles.
We also sponsor an NHR team justin n Ashley Racing.
And again these are two different demographics of motorsports people.
(24:05):
You have dragsters and motorcycle people very different. So that's
an area where we, you know, we we try to
promote the product and the Cotto name by having it
on these on these vehicles that are in professional motorsports.
We also do the SEMA Show now with our Catdo
(24:25):
Threat Kids division, and then the p R Show which
is a performance racing show in Indianapolis every year.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
That's great, So el great story brand is definitely booming.
It seems like you've overlapped now into the into the
automotive industry. So we will continue to follow and see
where the journey of Kado continues. So Al, there are inventors,
there are people that are interested in in fasteners that
(24:56):
are watching and listening to this show. If you can
give us some words of wisdom when we come up
with an idea, when we want to be innovative, we
want to take an idea and bring it to the
next level, maybe you can just drop us some words
of wisdom to keep us inspired and motivated to move
forward with our ideas.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
You know, I wish I would say it's easy, but
it's not. And I can tell you know, for most people.
Most people will tell you any any successful inventor of
a product will tell you it's not an easy journey.
It will take time, especially if it's something new that
you're introducing or you invented. But stick with it, you
(25:38):
know it. Like I said, it took us twenty years
to get to sixty five percent of the market and
so but we stuck with it and don't lose focus.
There are inventors out there that have all these wonderful
ideas in their head and they come out with these ideas,
but they spread themselves too thin. If you have a
good idea and you gain traction with that idea, stick
(26:01):
with it. Maximize your energy and your efforts on that
single idea. Maximize that idea as much as you can
before you start looking at other ideas or other inventions.
And yeah, I think that's the best advice I can give.
Is it's going to be hard. You're going to have to,
you know, really educate people. But that's the thing is
(26:25):
just stick with it.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Look out Kado started from just the idea and shook
hands and turned it into a business, expanded the brand,
now expanding industries. So it started with an idea now
how many customers if you want to share that, or
how much revenue. I don't know if that's public or private,
but if you share one of those numbers with us,
(26:47):
just to see from the idea to where it is today.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, we don't share the closed revenue, but I can
tell you that every aerospace and defense contractor and subcontractor
utilizes Cotto products, so Lockey, Martin and Boeing. The product
is actually used on the International Space Station, It's used
on the Mars Rover. If you go to our website,
you'll see is actually an image of the Perseverance Rover
(27:12):
and that actually uses our product in the SuperCamp right
here where this the camera system is and if you
click on that, you can actually see the actual box.
So this is the camera system that's on the Perseverance rover.
And you can see here in the corner where they
have our inserts and tools and it went into this
this box to strengthen these dreads. So yeah, the product
(27:34):
is used all over the place.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I would take that image and I would blow that
up and put it in my office. That's so cool
as part of NASA's box in the amazing so al
Thank you so much, for joining us. This has really
been an intriguing experience, just to understand. Look, we all
come up with an idea at some point there or another.
(27:56):
Some people capture it and continue on their journey, some
people believe it. For others, but look at something simple,
not necessarily so simple, but something simple like that to
be able to build it into this company, this empire.
We appreciate the story that you've provided for us and
we look forward to hearing more of the future of
(28:20):
Kado coming up very soon.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So thank you very much, Al, thank you, Brian, it
was my pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, so that wraps up another edition of the Got
Invention Show. My name is Brian Freed, and keep your
innovations going and find things that are problem solution to
keep you moving forward with your big ideas. Thank you
so much and we will see you soon.
Welcome to the gout Invention Show. I'm your host, Brian Freed,
and we always have interesting guests. We have some innovations
that start off with just an idea in their head
to building these amazing brands. And today we have Al Kakish.
He is from Caddo Fascinating Systems in Virginia. Welcome to
(00:40):
the got Invention Show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thanks Brian.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Great to be here, so Al, interesting story from you
and the company. Maybe you can start off by telling
us a little bit about yourself, who you are and
where you're from.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thanks. So, yeah, my name is Al Kakeish, originally from
New Jersey, went to Markers Universe in New Jersey, got
an engineering degree in mechanical engineering with a certificated aerospace
and worked actually for a company in Hasbro Kitesen, New
Jersey for about a year before I moved on to
(01:14):
Tocato Fascinating Systems. And yeah, I've been with Kato for
nearly thirty plus years now.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Wow, you can really appreciate all the products that you
offer from where they came from and just watching the
evolution of just building the brand and now being a
part of just kind of running the company is something
that probably you see in a different perspective than somebody
just starting out that way.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Oh for sure. Yeah, because you know, in the beginning,
it was just, you know, I was isolated. I was
in the engineering department, just focused on design part, working
on tools, and then that kind of brought into application side,
where I had to communicate with customers, talk about their
applications and provide solutions for their applications to then troubleshooting
(02:06):
customer problems, and then even training, then putting on presentations
in front of you know, like I can recall the
first time it was at Lockheed Martin and I had
to do a presentation as like thirty forty people, all
engineers and manufacturing people had to go in there and
do a presentation on the product. So it was kind
(02:26):
of like, yeah, hey, hey, you go go do this.
It was thrown into the fire kind of a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Very interesting. So, look, we can get a little bit
deeper about the innovation, how the company started with just
an idea and developed into building this brand. Why don't
we start off by just showing a little bit about
what Kado is about.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, So Kado really became known because of a product
called quailed read inserts and I got an image right
here of the product, and this product here on the
right hand side, you can see my mouse on hopefully
(03:08):
and with the metal down the center. That metal piece
is called a tang. And that product has been around
since the thirties. Company called Helicoil that invented that product.
It's used in aerospace and defense. A lot of companies
or a lot of people know about the product because
it later became a thread repair product, but originally it
(03:29):
was created for aerospace and defense to provide a stronger
thread in lightweight materials like aluminum, for example. And the
issue with the tang product is that you have to
orient the insert so that the tang is facing down
so that the tool can grab it, and then you
install it, and you have to go back after you
(03:51):
install it and break off the tank. And if it's
a blind hole, meaning the hole does you can't see
through the hole, you have to go back into that
hole fish out that tank. And we're talking about some
very small sizes here, thread sizes that are you know,
point zero zero eighty six in diameter, so very small stuff.
And so in the in the mid eighties late eighties,
(04:14):
Cado invented the tangless insert, which is the insert on
the left here, and you can see there's no metal
tang going down in the middle, and so instead of that,
there are actually drive notches on both ends of the insert,
and that allowed the innsert to be bidirectional, and that
was one of the benefits. The other benefit is once
(04:35):
the insert was installed, you no longer had to go
in and break off or retrieve the tank. And that's
that's the product that Cado really became famous for or
popular for, I should.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Say very interesting. So in aerospace and defense, where would
this piece be used?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, So to give you an idea, every every Boeing aircraft,
for example, probably has two hundred plus thousand of these
inserts all over the aircraft, from the airframe to any
kind of aluminum or magnesium housing or aluminum box that
(05:19):
houses electronics communication systems. Those boxes are mounted or have
fastened to something else, and you don't want to damage
those boxes, which in some cases could really cost thousands
of dollars to machine, because you're using a steel bolt
(05:42):
in an aluminum part. And so by putting these inserts
in to the aluminum or to the magnesium, you create
a thread that's actually stronger than the bolt, so that
if you were to let's say, torque down a bolt
or really tighten the bolt, overtighten it, you won't damage
or stripped of threads that are in this really expensive part.
(06:02):
You'll just snap the bolhead and then thread it out
and replace it. And that's the idea of using these
interests to provide a stronger thread than you would have
without using them.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
For the average personnel. You don't think about these things,
but you saying that thousands of these are used and
tens of thousands are used on aircraft and other types
of aerospace and different types of products and concepts out there.
I mean that's you don't think about it, but look
at how important this invention really turned out to be.
(06:37):
And it kind of evolves from the one that had
the kind of hook inside to not needing the hook.
And so before we kind of get a little bit
deeper into the story of this, maybe you could just
show us quickly some of the other products that you
have that Kato offers.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Sure. So, as I mentioned, our core product product that
we're really known for is the tanglessin so we've caught
always been making the tang style in sert since the seventies,
and it wasn't until like the late eighties or early
nineties that we really perfected the tangless product and really
introduce it to the market. Since then, you know, we've
(07:20):
come out with a product called lock one. So this
this product is really interesting as well. You apply this
to the end of any bolt or nut assembly and
it's just a standard nut, and it'll prevent that nut
from loosening free under vibration, so you don't you know,
it replaces things like double nuts or codder pins or
(07:41):
safety wire, and it threads on very easily and you
can remove it much easier to work with than codder
pins or safety wire for that matter. So that's that's
another product that we invented and offer. We also have
a whole line of tooling to go along with the
tangless product, and we've invented different tools over the years.
(08:04):
Uh this one here. Although we don't manufacture the electric driver,
you know, we we partnered with a company that specializes
in in manufacturing these drivers. However, they were manufactured to
our specification, so we work with them to you know,
request certain torque levels, to request certain speed levels, and
(08:29):
and they worked with us and this was this was
a project that actually took about three years of going
back and forth in development to really be able to
introduce it, and it's it's the first of its kind
in the market. No one else has this cordless drivers
out there, of course, but no one else has in
our industry has something like this where it has auto
(08:50):
reversing features. It works with two different styles of installation tools,
so that's that's another one of our products that we do.
And we have torque arms as well for holding the tools,
some manual tools that we offer as well. And then
it's the whole system. You know, it's called Codo Fascinating
Systems because it is a whole system with the inserts.
(09:13):
In order to install an insert, you actually have to
drill out a hole and then you have to tap
a hole, but you tap it using these STI threads,
So these are special taps that are used to create
the thread profile for the inserts to go into. And
then you know, once you do that, then you really
need to check the holes. And we have these STI
gauges and these are the gauges that actually check the
(09:36):
threads before you install the insert to ensure that the
threads are correct. And so these are some of the
products that we currently offer.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So cool. You don't think about these things, you know,
average consumers out there. This is all B to B industrial,
but it's very well needed and something simple that makes
a big difference in different industries. And it's interesting because
you and your company and the original owner had an
(10:08):
idea with the coil and then built this brand. So
out maybe you can kind of rewind back and start
off by telling us we kind of have an idea
of how the idea was came about, but what happened when?
And what was his name?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think so the Kado is actually very popular Japanese name.
It's common to like Smith in the US, you know,
so Kado is a very popular name. And so the
original founder of Kado it was Kado Spring Works Limited
(10:47):
in Japan. It was a spring company and fast forwarding,
and that was back in the nineteen thirties it was established,
and he fast forward to the seventies. Now his grandson
is in the business. His son was in the business,
and his grandson, Paul Cotto was in the business, and
he was young. He lived in California for several years
(11:10):
and he was approached by a company in California at
the time to make these inserts, to make these wire inserts,
and at the time it was the tanged one. And
so he went back to Japan and went to the
factories and said, hey, I have a customer that wants
us to make these inserts. And then you look at
them and they do look like a spring, So you know,
(11:34):
why not a spring company making these inserts. The wire
cross section is different. It's not round like a spring.
It's kind of a diamond shape, which is like a
thread when you look at a thread, that's what it
looks like. And so they went back and they developed
the technology the equipment to be able to produce a
tanged insert. And then it wasn't until the mid mid
(11:57):
eighties that two engineers from the company in California, Frank
Cascenza and Al Yamamoto. Frank had the idea to do
this tangless insert and to eliminate, you know, what was
seen as the the issues or the problems with using
a tanged product. How do we and you know, if
(12:17):
you think about inventions, most inventions are you know, to
resolve a problem or to you know, come up with
a solution to something that's difficult, Right, someone tries to
come fro an idea and that's how an invention comes up.
And this is no different. You know, there are the
tank as well as the tanged inserts are there. They
have their flaws and they're difficult in some certain applications
(12:41):
to use. So they came up with the tangless idea,
but they didn't know how to make it. So they
went back to Kado and they say, look, we have
this idea. We we need your expertise, expertise in manufacturing
to be able to produce this tangless product, and so
on a handshake, believe it or not, on a Handshakekado
(13:01):
in Japan invested almost a million dollars. Now think about this.
This is back in nineteen eighties. Money a million dollars
to develop equipment and it had to be built from
the ground up because there was nothing available and so
they had to design it and build it to be
able to produce a tangless insert. And although you look
(13:22):
at the inserts and you say, okay, they're very similar.
You know, one has a tang, one does not. The
manufacturing of the product is so different. The only thing
they have in common is at one point, at some
point during the manufacturing they get coiled like a spring.
Beyond that, it's very different manufacturing. But they did Kado
(13:43):
invented the equipment to do it, and the company in
California began selling tangless inserts in the late eighties early nineties.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Oh so, once they had the idea, they wanted to
get some sort of intellectual property, some patent possibly on it. Right,
So correct tell us what they did. They had the idea,
they built it out, they had the handshake, and now
before they bring it to market, is that when they
(14:16):
decided to file for a patent.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Now, actually, that's an excellent question. The patents actually were
applied for even before the parts were manufactured by Caddo.
I think the patents were they may have already been
approved by the time they approached CODDO or they were
in the process. So they've already applied for the patents
when they approached Caddo. So they took care of that
(14:39):
part of it before they even showed the manufacturing facility
what they had in mind. And they ended up getting
thirteen patents totally on the product for different aspects of
the product from the champer on the end of the
insert to the notches, and then the tooling itself because
(14:59):
the tooling was very innovative, very unique to the to
the product. And so yeah, so they had thirteen patents
on it and several international patents were applied and received
for the for the tangless product and Tangless itself. The
name tangless is a registered trademark.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I see that. Usually there's a TM, but when you
register it and you're selling it in commerce, it turns
into that R So you put that r H next
to tangles. So al as this product started to sell,
you showed us quite a bit of products that kind
of evolved from this, uh that are relative to the
(15:40):
industry wanting to build a brand. So tell us about
the innovation at Kado. You were kind of on the
on the other side, and you brought yourself up to
uh being a level of running the company as the president.
Tell us about the innovative journey of just starting off
with that one idea and now look at what you've built.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, so you know, when it was first started, you know,
really it was more about Okay, we have this product,
you know, how do how do you you know when
you invest all that money and you have a good idea,
that doesn't necessarily mean people are going to buy it, right,
It doesn't mean that the product is going to be successful.
It could be a great idea, but if people are
(16:23):
not aware of it, or people don't see the value
in it, then it's very difficult to get any kind
of traction or momentum. So the first thing we had
to do was we really had to go to the
National Aerospace Standards Committee the NASC and apply for a specification.
Because the product is sold and as I mentioned earlier,
(16:46):
predominantly aerospace and defense. They use parts that have what
we call Millspec Millspec parts, so they have military specifications.
The military is no longer doing specifications now they've become
aerospace specifications in the form of National Aerospace associations, and
(17:06):
so the NASC. We approached them with the product and
we actually demonstrated the product to Boeing and at the
time it was Texas instruments. Now they're a Raydon, but
it was Texas instruments, so people will remember Texas instruments
from calculators right back in the eighties. Yeah, yeah, So
we approached them, We approached their members on the National
(17:29):
Aerospace Standards Committee, and they looked at the idea and
they said, hey, this is this is not a bad idea.
But they wanted samples and they wanted to do their
own testing, and so we, you know, we provided them
some samples, and initially we only made four sizes. We
looked at the market, we said, okay, here's the four
most popular threat sizes. So these are the sizes that
(17:52):
you know, we need to focus on, and let's see
if we can build some momentum with those four sizes.
And they were sizes that act fully either both one
or both of the committee members. Boeing and Texas Instruments
requested and we provided them with the samples. We sent
(18:12):
the product out for independent lab testing to compare the
product to the existing standards for the tanged insert to
compare the vibration testing to the tanged inserts. So we
had to prove the customers that this product is as good,
if not better than the existing product, and they're not
going to take your word for it. So there's a
(18:34):
cost involved, right, There's the cost involved with the manufacturing
the product. Is the cost involved with the patents themselves.
There is the cost involved with doing independent lab tests
because you send the product out, you tell the lab
this is what i'd like, he has the specification, test
these inserts against this specification and please provide your results.
(18:54):
And we had to do all that, but in the
it was nineteen ninety nineteen ninety two the National Aerospace
Standards Committee published the specification in AS eleven thirty, which
is the standard, the aerospace standard for the unified sizes
like inch sizes of Tangles sensors. And that's how we
(19:17):
started this process moving forward.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And now you have all these other products. So as
you were innovating adding more products to your product line,
what is it? What kind of process do you have
internally as you're coming up with ideas, vetting them and
deciding if they're going to be manufactured and added to
your product line.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, so really the focus, honestly, for the first twenty years,
the focus was on how to expand the Tangles's product line.
There's this big market, we're just a small piece of it,
and how do we do that? And so it was
really about developing more sizes. And although it sounds pretty simple,
(20:01):
you know, okay, you just make it larger. The equipment
required is different, so you have to develop punch presses
that are different, that are heavy duty, you know, for
the larger sizes versus the smaller sizes, And so that's
really where the innovation is. It's really on the manufacturing side,
figuring out how do we make the insert smaller, how
(20:23):
do we make them larger, and then making them out
of different materials because when you try to coil stainless
steel versus trying to call phosphor bronze material, phosphor bronze
is much softer than stainless steel, so it behave differently.
That's really been the focus for the first twenty years
is really the innovation side is about manufacturing the product.
(20:44):
But once that was done, is then we look at, well,
what are the tools can we come up with for
a design for the product. Because initially we had one tool.
It was a simple tool. It was patented, but you
can use that tool in a handle for manual installly
and then you could take it out of the handle
and put into an electric driver and do it that way.
(21:04):
But then we needed to develop better processes and better
tools for higher volume customers and that's and that's what
we did. So for twenty years, we've really focused on
this product, try to get maximized the market for this product.
And now Tangles represents more than sixty five percent of
(21:24):
all inserts that are shipped in the North America. That's
US and Canada. So we've gone from zero to sixty
five percent. But it took a long time.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Well, congratulations on your success so far. So tell us
where you are right now. You mentioned decent, but you're
also expanding into other industries and how are you getting
the word out to continue to build your company.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, So now that we've you know, really have gotten
a large share of the aerospace and defense market, we
looked at where else we can grow. And area we
didn't really touch upon was the automotive market and specifically
the automotive aftermarket. And so in two thousand and sixteen,
(22:13):
I acquired a division actually from one of our former
distributors of the product. The business was sold and the
division they had for thread repair kits was kind of
like lingering on there, and I approached them and we
acquired that division. So we were very familiar with them,
they were already familiar with us, so it was very
(22:33):
simple to really incorporate them into our business and so
we ended up, you know, having a division called thread
Kits Company, which is now cow Too thread Kits, and
they produced stuff like this where they have a kit
and it has a tool, it has a tap that
you need, and it has the inserts. So we used
(22:57):
that market then to launch the first Tangless Pro Kit
and so this is a thread repair kit, but it's
for Tangless and so this would not even exist if
it wasn't for the automotive aftermarket. And to promote the brand,
you know, we did a good job over the twenty
years promoting it in the aerospace and defense industries, but
(23:20):
we really this is a completely different market. Nothing there's
no overlap whatsoever with the aerospace guys. And so we
started to sponsor professional motorsports teams and we sponsor if
you look at our homepage, you'll see we have motorcycle teams.
This is a HSBK Dukati. They're part of the Motor
(23:43):
America Superbike Series and they've been very successful. They utilize
our product to repair their motorcycles, threads and their motorcycles.
We also sponsor an NHR team justin n Ashley Racing.
And again these are two different demographics of motorsports people.
(24:05):
You have dragsters and motorcycle people very different. So that's
an area where we, you know, we we try to
promote the product and the Cotto name by having it
on these on these vehicles that are in professional motorsports.
We also do the SEMA Show now with our Catdo
(24:25):
Threat Kids division, and then the p R Show which
is a performance racing show in Indianapolis every year.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
That's great, So el great story brand is definitely booming.
It seems like you've overlapped now into the into the
automotive industry. So we will continue to follow and see
where the journey of Kado continues. So Al, there are inventors,
there are people that are interested in in fasteners that
(24:56):
are watching and listening to this show. If you can
give us some words of wisdom when we come up
with an idea, when we want to be innovative, we
want to take an idea and bring it to the
next level, maybe you can just drop us some words
of wisdom to keep us inspired and motivated to move
forward with our ideas.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
You know, I wish I would say it's easy, but
it's not. And I can tell you know, for most people.
Most people will tell you any any successful inventor of
a product will tell you it's not an easy journey.
It will take time, especially if it's something new that
you're introducing or you invented. But stick with it, you
(25:38):
know it. Like I said, it took us twenty years
to get to sixty five percent of the market and
so but we stuck with it and don't lose focus.
There are inventors out there that have all these wonderful
ideas in their head and they come out with these ideas,
but they spread themselves too thin. If you have a
good idea and you gain traction with that idea, stick
(26:01):
with it. Maximize your energy and your efforts on that
single idea. Maximize that idea as much as you can
before you start looking at other ideas or other inventions.
And yeah, I think that's the best advice I can give.
Is it's going to be hard. You're going to have to,
you know, really educate people. But that's the thing is
(26:25):
just stick with it.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Look out Kado started from just the idea and shook
hands and turned it into a business, expanded the brand,
now expanding industries. So it started with an idea now
how many customers if you want to share that, or
how much revenue. I don't know if that's public or private,
but if you share one of those numbers with us,
(26:47):
just to see from the idea to where it is today.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, we don't share the closed revenue, but I can
tell you that every aerospace and defense contractor and subcontractor
utilizes Cotto products, so Lockey, Martin and Boeing. The product
is actually used on the International Space Station, It's used
on the Mars Rover. If you go to our website,
you'll see is actually an image of the Perseverance Rover
(27:12):
and that actually uses our product in the SuperCamp right
here where this the camera system is and if you
click on that, you can actually see the actual box.
So this is the camera system that's on the Perseverance rover.
And you can see here in the corner where they
have our inserts and tools and it went into this
this box to strengthen these dreads. So yeah, the product
(27:34):
is used all over the place.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I would take that image and I would blow that
up and put it in my office. That's so cool
as part of NASA's box in the amazing so al
Thank you so much, for joining us. This has really
been an intriguing experience, just to understand. Look, we all
come up with an idea at some point there or another.
(27:56):
Some people capture it and continue on their journey, some
people believe it. For others, but look at something simple,
not necessarily so simple, but something simple like that to
be able to build it into this company, this empire.
We appreciate the story that you've provided for us and
we look forward to hearing more of the future of
(28:20):
Kado coming up very soon.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So thank you very much, Al, thank you, Brian, it
was my pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, so that wraps up another edition of the Got
Invention Show. My name is Brian Freed, and keep your
innovations going and find things that are problem solution to
keep you moving forward with your big ideas. Thank you
so much and we will see you soon.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.