After a brief holiday break, our Thursday Flashbacks are back — and this one takes us all the way to July of 1973.
At that time, Raychem was working to solve a challenging problem: how to effectively protect corrugated steel pipe from water ingress and corrosion. Their approach was ambitious. Engineers developed a heat-shrink sleeve with an exceptionally thick mastic layer and even packed additional mastic into the ridges of the corrugated pipe, aiming to create a truly waterproof barrier.
On paper, it seemed promising.
However, anyone familiar with shrink sleeves understands a fundamental limitation when it comes to corrugated surfaces. Shrink sleeves naturally tend to “bridge” across the peaks of corrugation. When that happens, a spiral leak path is left behind in the valleys — exactly where water is most likely to travel.
Despite extensive evaluations and testing, the solution simply didn’t perform as intended. Ultimately, the entire project was scrapped.
And that’s where the real value of this story lies.
Raychem devoted a significant portion of its revenue to internal research and development. When you invest millions of dollars into R&D, not every project will become a market success. Some efforts result in breakthrough products. Others fall into a different category: not a great product — but a great lesson.
This 1973 experiment was one of those moments. While the product never made it to market, the insights gained helped shape future technologies and reinforced an important truth in our industry: understanding why something doesn’t work can be just as valuable as finding something that does.
Sometimes progress comes not from success, but from the lessons learned along the way.
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