I designed a Tea Steeper for Doterra, the design allowed the user to easily scoop the desired amount of loose leaf tea into the stainless steel part of the steeper. The steeper’s silicone top slides down the handle to seal it closed and keeping the tea in place. To reduce the cost of the steeper we sourced an existing part and customizes the hole pattern. Something we struggled through with this design was the welding of the handle to the base of the basket, and reducing the hole size.
The basket is stamped flat and molded into shape which warps the holes and makes them larger than the specified size. we went through 2 iterations trying to iron out the size of the holes and the appropriate durometer of the silicon cap.