Stem Innovation

Hi Everyone,

This blog post would cover the stem of our umbrella, and explain why we have the best umbrella stem in the business.

Our Gen 1 stem was fantastic, however after making 1000’s of units we found that there are many areas for improvement to make the stem stronger, stiffer, and more reliable. The opportunity came, and we decided to jump on the investment. It wasn’t easy, we went from the traditional cold drawn aluminum members to the industry first stainless steel members. This change requires an all new set of tools as well as several inventions to make possible. The development took almost an entire year, but we believe that the investment was definitely worth it. See below for the comparisons between the Gen 1 and Gen 2 stems.

Manufacturing a telescopic stem in stainless steel was not easy, a special set of dies was developed specifically to tackle the abrasive nature of forming stainless steel. In the end, it was all worth it, the Gen 2 stem is the strongest telescopic umbrella stem ever made. This was only made possible with the hex profile giving us amazing torsional stiffness, and the stainless steel material producing off-the-charts strength properties in bending. Something that aluminum can never achieve.

While we were in the process or redesigning the entire stem, we took the opportunity to implement ideas we had in the past to the new stem. One particular details that’s a personal favorite for us was the fully internal locking mechanism. All the features required to lock the telescopic sections open/close are all housed internally. This not only looks slick, but also prevents dirt and debris from entering the locking mechanisms. A small subtle detail that we believe adds a special touch to the Hedgehog Umbrella.

Hope everyone enjoyed this blog post, and be sure to stay tuned for future posts.

Regards,

Team Hedgehog