Like all successful businesses around the world there is always a beginning. It was Spring 1988. I was 16 years old at the time working for my dad in his Paint supplies shop for the Panel Beater & Spray Painter. I was developing my skills at the time as a Colormatcher / Spray Painter. Some years passed and I had become known as one of the best Colormatchers available at the time. Like any skill that you work at hard enough you become pretty good at it.
As a Spray Painter in Australia, I had come to notice that there wasn’t a great range of sanding blocks readily available and it was always the same two blocks: the 3M® Stick it Pad and the 3M® Color Sanding Pad. Although they were great blocks, they didn’t meet all the criteria needed for refinishing.
It was Fall 1996, I started on my venture to develop a range of Sanding blocks that would be more versatile and cost effective. At the drawing board stage, I used my knowledge of spray painting and listening to key notes from customers; different shapes, sizes, densities, long ones, small ones, hard ones and flexible ones had to be considered. So, I looked at every type of material that I could get my hands on. Finding the right raw materials was very difficult. However, if you pursue something long enough you will eventually find what you are looking for.
The million dollar question: How to process these new found materials? Back to the drawing board! Knowing that the processing stage of my venture is paramount, I had to call on the experts of the industry. It was summer 1997 when I met Mr Derek Hollborow at a company called Powertroll, they built processing machinery for anyone who needed something specific. I sat down with Mr Hollborow and explained to him what I was trying to accomplish and he did the rest after some time and trials. The man’s a Genius that’s all I’m going to say.
Summer of 1998 caught up with us before I had finally got the delivery of my new processing machine that was going to continue me on my path to making sanding blocks. I set up the machine and started to process my material and it worked like a charm. Finally I started to produce sanding blocks in a timely and efficient manner. Idea: Where better to start out initial trials of my product than my old man’s Paint Shop. I started to stack the shelves with my blocks for the first time, just beside the 3M® blocks. A few weeks had passed and no sales had been made. It was brutal. I kind of knew what the problem was: the product needed a brand & selling point. Back to the drawing board, only this time it took me a LONG time. Branding is the make or break of any product. Cannot stress that enough!
It was Late Fall 1999 and after several months of deliberating on what to brand my product range, I finally had a brand name in place. ‘AMAXI PRODUCTS’ was born and the AP logo was created. So I had to get this newly created brand on my product range. I knew a person in my travels who did a lot of printing in his day so I asked him for his expert advice on how to get print onto my product. He knew exactly what was required and showed me what I needed to purchase to achieve my goal. Winter 1999, Amaxi Products hit the store shelf a second time, only this time with branding! Same scenario, stacked them beside the 3M® blocks and sales started to go my way. Customers would start picking up the AP blocks, impressed, and would bring them to the counter for purchase saying “I need one of these” - the phrase I would hear for a long time and still do to this day.