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◆ Product Profi le
Hawkmate Spackling Tool
Storage System
A
plastering industry veteran,
Long Island native Matthew
Niedfeld has gone through a
lot of spackle and putty knives in his
20 years as a contractor. After years of
throwing away eight- and nine-dollar
knives that had been cracked, bent and
chipped on the job site, Niedfeld decided
he’d had enough.
Th e root of the problem was simply
that Niedfeld and his crew — not
to mention the rest of the plastering
community — had no convenient place
to store their knives. Knives on the fl oor
were inevitably lost in the tangle of other
tools and equipment. In addition to
either being wet or covered in spackle,
knives hanging from pockets were
often the cause of brutal wall gouges.
To prevent all this, Niedfeld needed
somewhere close at hand to store the
knives. And what, for a plasterer, could
be closer at hand than a hawk?
Th e Hawkmate, Niedfeld’s solution
to this universal plastering problem,
mounts to the bottom of a hawk,
providing convenient storage for half
a dozen plasterers’ knives. Th e design
is simple — a durable aluminum
attachment that can be mounted
between the handle and base of any
standard 12-inch or 13-inch hawk.
Once affi xed, the plasterer has only
to slip the knives between hawk and
‘mate, for convenient storage and blade
protection.
Niedfeld’s Hawkmate prototype
was manufactured in his garage — just
as every Hawkmate has been since.
With the help of two of his crew, he
can produce 1,000 tools in one arduous
weekend. Th en the durable aluminum
attachments are ready to go.
Niedfeld’s original notion may have
Spring 2008 ◆ www.Hawk-n-Trowel.com ◆ 25
Photos courtesy of Matthew Niedfeld