Putting the ‘cuff’ on metal thieves

A Milwaukie High School grad has developed a device that safeguards a vehicle’s catalytic converter

By Anthony Roberts

The Clackamas Review, Jul 8, 2008, Updated Jul 9, 2008 (9 Reader comments)

Anthony Roberts / Clackamas Review

Joe Hutchinson shows off the Catcuff, a device he invented to protect a vehicle's catalytic converter from metal thieves.

The thief was bold and efficient.

In broad daylight, grainy surveillance footage showed him slowly driving past Joe Hutchinson’s Toyota Tacoma, parked in an office complex parking lot in Vancouver. On his third trip past the truck, he hopped out of his car, and appeared to slide underneath the truck before he was lost from the camera’s view.

Hutchinson, a Milwaukie native, headed out to the parking lot after a secretary showed him the tape, and didn’t see anything wrong with the truck. But when he hopped in at the end of the day and turned the key, it sounded more like a Harley Davidson than a Toyota. The thief had ripped out his catalytic converter, a device housed underneath vehicles that helps to filter an engine’s emissions.

Hutchinson had become the latest victim of metal theft, a growing crime which is reaching epidemic proportions as prices for certain metals rise. Catalytic converters contain trace amounts of platinum, palladium, and rhodium, the latter of which can fetch $9,000 per ounce, and the high clearance and bolt-on construction found on late-model Tacomas make them easy targets. The thieves damaged his undercarriage, and the bill to fix his truck was $1,700.

“After it happened, I wondered if there was anything out there to stop this kind of thing,” Hutchinson said.

When he found out there wasn’t he invented something. After about two years of research and trial-and-error, Hutchinson has developed the Catcuff, a simple device that uses common parts to lock a catalytic converter to a vehicle’s frame.

Hutchinson — who graduated from Milwaukie High School and has a mechanical engineering degree from Oregon State University — first thought he would develop a custom device. He ran into huge cost issues associated with developing molds for parts. In addition to placing an insurmountable burden on his self-funded project, that also would have driven the price of the device up, and Hutchinson wanted something simple and inexpensive.

“I started doing a lot of Internet research and talking to machinists that I know,” he said, and eventually came up with the Catcuff. It uses aircraft cable, a fairly common but tightly wound stainless steel coil; U-shaped brackets that are commonly used to mount street signs; and cone-shaped bolts, the heads of which shear off when they’re tightened to the proper tension so that thieves can’t remove them with common tools. The parts were specially selected to withstand the high heat generated by the catalytic converter — they can reach almost 1,000 degrees Farenheit — and they’ve withstood assaults by bolt cutters, hacksaws and other common blades used by thieves. Hutchinson is convinced that a thief isn’t getting one off without a blowtorch.

Hutchinson said he’s only found one other device designed to protect a catalytic converter, and it’s a large, custom-made piece that costs hundreds of dollars — the Catcuff is $49.95 online at www.catcuff.com.

He believes his simple device can be equally effective for much less, and can be installed fairly easily with a socket wrench and a pair of pliers. He has a patent pending on the Catcuff, and just last week, reached an agreement with local Meinecke shops to sell the Catcuff at their stores. In the meantime, he’s already been distributing them across the country via his Web site, www.catcuff.com.