A little about me ( Blaine McFarlane, P.Eng.)
DESIGN
I started Solve Product Design as an engineering consultancy in 2008. Armed with a laptop, some CAD software, and 12 years of R&D design experience, I was fortunate to find a few good clients. Since then I’ve worked with some of the best companies in Canada and have helped to design a wide variety of products: hybrid vehicles including the first hybrid diesel-electric transit buses to enter service in North America; windrowers and tractors including the highest horsepower 4WD tractor in the world (at the time); and environmental projects including the world’s first 3D printed car, designed to run purely on renewable energy.
PROTOTYPE
In 2015 I fulfilled a dream of building my own workshop. I slowly filled it with hand tools and high quality second-hand equipment. As opportunities arose, I made investments in larger and newer manufacturing equipment such as a milling machine, lathe, CNC laser, TIG welder, plasma cutter, and 3D printer. More importantly, I’ve invested thousands of hours in my education on a wide range of topics: woodworking, machining, electronics, circuit board design, software programming and industrial design to name a few. I’m now able to work with a wide variety of materials and build complex prototypes for myself and my clients.
MANUFACTURE
As time allowed, I began working on a few simple designs of high-quality products. These were “internal” projects that intrigued me and things I thought might interest others. If people liked them, I offered them for sale and did some small scale manufacturing. As I started riding motorcycles – possibly a midlife crisis – I started building enhancements that I couldn’t find elsewhere. You can find a few products I’ve developed in the store section of this website (more to come soon).
More recently, I added a 3-axis CNC milling machine to the shop and now provide full production manufacturing and assembly of small components for a local business.
If you’d like to see a few small projects I’ve done over the years, check out my YouTube channel here.