In 2014, while renovating their recently bought old house in Antwerp, Koen (a business unit director at a large foodcompany; not an engineer at all) was facing a very specific DIY problem. "How do I sand the small corners and curves of my wooden stairs properly?" The straight surfaces could be easily done with existing power sanders available in many shapes/brands and prices. Though, the corners and sculpted wood-parts of the handrail needed to be done by hand. A frustrating and labour intensive job. "Fortunately" he looked for but did not find any appropriate power tool for the job. This motivated Koen to innovate and start the development of a really new "power tool" that can do the job. He connected with Gregory, a Prof. Dr. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Antwerp, and subjected the first development phases to two Engineering students Hans and Michaël. The first Proof of Concept or "pre-prototype" gave an indication that the potential was there. Pictures of this below.

In 2018 GenR8 BV, the development company for the machine, was founded, the concepts patented and the first real prototypes developed. In cooperation with experts in product development and power tool manufacturing, the prototype was optimised and GenR8 proudly announced the release of the BLSTR sander®. TWSM europe BV is the commercial company that handles the distribution, marketing and sales of the BLSTR sander®.

Together with a great marketing agency we decided to do a "launch test" via Kickstarter. A crowdfunding company (wellknown in the USA) would help us to see if people were interested in our newborn. It was a succes. And the funds allowed us to pay for tooling, factory setup and first production.