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e

Object Culture

A Dental Industry Tool for Getting the Last Drop of Product Out of a Squeeze Tube

The Big Squeeze is now commercially available

By Rain Noe - February 15

Nothing drives me nuts like wasted product. When I finish a bag of potato chips, I up-end the bag and pour the powder at the bottom into my mouth. I "marry" my shampoo bottles. Back when I was cooking for myself, if I fried up a steak, the pan and the leftover juices were set aside to fry up the next morning's eggs.

But I can't get the last drop of toothpaste out of a tube.

Mechanical engineer Stephen Galante invented the following tool, which you've undoubtedly seen some earlier variant of, for the dental industry. Not for toothpaste, but for the tubes that tooth-bonding composites come in. It's as precious to the dentists as expensive paint is to poor artists. And what makes Galante's invention different from others is the gear-like wringers:

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The Big Squeeze, as it's called, is now available to consumers and runs $40 a pop. If that sounds like a lot, I can almost guarantee I've thrown away at least that much toothpaste by not being able to extract it. For artists, chefs and mechanics working with more expensive tube-dispensed products, this thing is a no-brainer.

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Rain Noe

Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.

7 Comments

Eitan Mendelowitz

8 months ago

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Overkill. Just put the tube on a flat surface, Grab a dowel, or a pencil, or a ruler, or your toothbrush, and push the remaining toothpaste up from the bottom of the tube to the top.

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Jonathan Stone

8 months ago

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Interesting, Loctite has a more expensive tool that does about the same thing, all bit it in a different way.
https://equipment.loctite.com/product/Loctite-50-ml-F-Tube-Squeeze-Dispenser

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Michael DiTullo

8 months ago

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The surfacing on that orange handle is gorgeous.

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Donald Jones

8 months ago

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I think the Spanish Inquisition invented these.

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Hanna Bawab

8 months ago

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I would totally buy it. I love it. I too hate it when there are left overs that I can't access. Like the popcorn in a bucket at the movie theater :).

Great job.

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Fazal Majid

8 months ago

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I have a tool like this I got for $8 from Amazon (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C6NWYN/). Made in China, and the squeezing handles are nowhere near as comfortable as these, but the same toothed gears that leave a crinkled finish on the tube, and the same all-metal construction.

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- Hanna Bawab
  
  Fazal Majid
  
  8 months ago
  
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  I agree the handles looks like they will make the difference.
  
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