What would it be worth?

[craigslater]

would like to see a pic of your tool mate....

[Strickimicki]

I bet you would

Porno stars get paid money for showing thier tool

No seriously I'll try to get around to it in the next day or two.

Its a bit ****ty though making something then handing the idea out free of charge.

I'll have to have a think about what I'm willing to show

all the best

Brian

[dantuck_7]

If you're serious and there is nothing similar out there - patent it and then go on dragons den - that would be interesting to see what they think.

[poolqjunkie]

I am not sure if I understand this.
I would use an oversize tip and just trim it to the right size. it is much easier than using the exact size tip.
To have it centered every time for an oversized tip, you can hold the front on a chuck on your lathe, and then use a concave live center to press the the tip onto the ferrule, it will be always centered no matter how big the tip is, as long as the concave center has been calibrated so it is not off centered (and that the front end of the shaft is straight). Any gel type of glue such as loctite, or super T, or whatever, will give you enough time to set the tip. You can also use accelerators to speed up the setting of the glue if you want it to set faster. Some glue such as Gorilla sets overnight but also will work well if you are not in a rush. Tweeten is a contact cement. I dont think they hold very strong. You can pop the tip off if you try to trim it and apply too much pressure or movement. So, not too many people would use that. The point is the glue should not be a problem sicne there are so many options to suit your own need.
To have a tip trim to size or center and mushroom can be quite easily done and is quite common in the US.
But even if the tip was not glued centered, it can always be trimmed to the right size anyway. I am therefore not sure what you are trying to say.
I must have missed something.

[stegorjus]

One of the first rules of innovating is to meet a need, or solve a problem. Are you sure that there are sufficient people who consider this a problem to justify the investment? There are very few inventions that solve a problem that people didn't know they had; deodorant and Shake and Vac are a couple of exceptions.

If you decide to patent this, it's going to cost a lot. Europe, USA, China and Philippines is likely to be £10K+. Then you've got to get it into production and to market. Expect £30K min. if you go it alone. If you are going to patent then shut up! Don't reveal anything more until you've sent your papers in. If you publish then you won't have absolute novelty, which is the essential element of a patent.

An alternative is registered design which covers an item's appearance. This costs around £250, more if you use an agent. It covers the design only, not the function. If your invention could be easily copied using a slightly different design then registered design won't protect you. One advantage of registered design is that you can publish your design before applying for the protection; six months I think, you'd have to check.

Possibly you could publish your design, knock up a load of prototypes and send them out to the big players to see if they want to take up the idea. If you get a positive response you could register your design within the allowed time. That way you avoid all the set-up and marketing costs, they just pay you a commission or buy you out.

Back to your original question. What something is worth is not dictated solely by its usefulness. If someone can see that something cost 10p to make, they won't pay £10 for it, not unless it's blue and diamond shaped with Viagra written on it. A better question would be, How many people would buy this at a certain price? Only you can work out at what level it will be viable.

[ADR147]

Think this is one already not sure if its excactly what you mean.
http://www.porper.com/index.cfm/fuse...614F577AB7F9BA

yes that is one but like the mushroom thing they do, it does not work well enough! - i am more acuerate by eye than the tool is - if you made one better than me it must be worth £10-£20 depends how good it is