Honolulu, HI Apr 15, 2023 | Last Thursday, Oceanit’s Director of Marketing, James Andrews joined ThinkTech Hawaii’s Tech Talks program, hosted by Jay Fidell, to discuss the news of Blast Ninja’s™ acquisition by American tooling manufacturer, Kennametal.
Fidell and Andrews began the discussion by talking about Oceanit’s ethos of delivering disruptive innovation from Hawaii to the world. Over the nearly four decades of Oceanit’s existence, the Oceanit team has endeavored to export research and development to solve global problems, something that continues to happen today with the Blast Ninja abrasive blasting nozzle brand.
The idea behind Blast Ninja came from Oceanit’s aerospace engineers, who were researching noise reduction in jet fighter engines – jets that can fly more than two times the speed of sound. However, most jets are not allowed to fly at supersonic speeds while over land, due to the massive noise created which can disrupt cities and damage the hearing of people on the ground.
Chronic hearing loss is a significant health burden when it comes to abrasive blasting as well – and hearing loss represents a huge healthcare cost for the United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs each year – topping $1 billion annually. Oceanit was able to solve this by creating Blast Ninja, a plug-and-play nozzle that reduces noise levels by up to 17dB while improving productivity.
Blast Ninja was recently acquired by Kennametal Inc.
“Blast Ninja offers a new level of performance, hearing protection, and productivity,” said Nick Pflugh, Kennametal’s Vice President of Engineered Wear Components, “We are excited to provide our customers with a solution that increases operator safety while allowing them to work longer periods uninterrupted.”
Watch the full episode below, or by visiting ThinkTech Hawaii’s website.
