The beauty salon hair braiding industry has a problem. For a customer receiving artificial hair extensions in the form of cornrows, boxbraids or other styles, they must wait hours for the hair stylist to split a complete pack of extensions into individual sections which can then be woven/styled before attaching to the customers braid root. This process is completely manual where the section is pulled from the main pack and set aside on a braiding hair rack. Vale Machinery Design was approached to develop a concept solution to fully automate this process by designing a system which could take a full hair pack, and split into user-defined preset widths, which could be picked and immediately taken to be braided, saving hours of labor and numbers of staff.
The solution was split into several stages, which have been developed at Vale Machinery Design as a standard flow of tasks, creating a lean development path. These are broadly detailed below: 1. Concept Drawings - hand drawn concept sketches provided blue sky thinking and development to the challenge we faced. A number of mechanical systems and techniques were recorded as having real potential as a starting point to solve such a new technical engineering challenge 2. Chosen Design - After reviewing with the customer, a design was chosen. This arrangement consisted of an aluminium sheet metal frame with a central sliding rail that could travel the total width of the hair pack. using Raspberry Pi Pico and stepper motor control, a parting plate was designed to part the extension back at user-defined intervals, as selected on a basic HMI. Once the user selected 'cut', the splitting plate moved vertically to meet a backplate, where the hair section was trapped. The section was removed from the pack and inserted onto a rotary braid rack, using a mechanism 3. CAD Design. In order to create a basic BoM, a CAD activity took place, giving rise to material costs, OEM components and a basic wiring diagram and controls architecture 4. Procurement of OEM components, and bespoke parts. The build took place towards the end of 2025
The client was presented with a first draft prototype which demonstrated a partially working concept. Crucially, this design highlighted important factors and learnings which will inform subsequent concepts. This concept design proved out the size of a device to be approximately 200mm x 50mm x 50mm, so something that could fit on a busy side table or workstation, powered through mains. The slicing action also provided considerable strand separation, and showed great potential, but the tangle of fibres through long hair packs provided some challenges and ultimately a subsequent concept was drafted in April 2026. We are currently in conversation in October 2026 about next steps
"A substantial engineering challenge which could pave the way for future fibre-splitting solutions."
From the project
Published with the express consent of both parties. The buyer chose to remain unnamed, so they are described by sector only. All quotes are unedited extracts from verified reviews.
