Mike, again, it's not stealling if he didn't patent it.
And if he did, if you are improving the design its still not steeling.
And as far as I know, as long as you make it for your personal use, patents
don't apply. (i.e. I could build any widget myself for my personal use and
not voilate trademark law. As long as I don't try to sell them.)
Besides, what if you build it and your buddy sees it and it gives him a
great idea on how to build something esle? This is how inovation happens.
As for stealling, I've built many parts that I needed over the years so I
didn't have to pay high prices. Everything from thumbs for back hoes to
welding tables and receiver hitches.
I recomend a newspaper for everyone here...
http://farmshow.com/
If you never read one, get one. These people build the coolest stuff I've
ever seen. I've also gotten great ideas from it.
Inch
http://megageek.com
"Did you exchange, a walk-on part in the war,
for a lead role in a cage?" R Waters.
-----shop-talk-owner@autox.team.net wrote: -----
To: shop-talk@autox.team.net
From: Mike Rambour <mikey@b2systems.com>
Sent by: shop-talk-owner@autox.team.net
Date: 07/26/2005 13:34
Subject: Re: Engineering 101
>Now, Mike, at some point you're going to have to fess up and show us this
>toy or at least tell us what it does...
Lets see if I build it first :) as I have told a few others off-list, I
am uncomfortable advertising that I am blatantly stealing someone else's
idea. The only redeeming parts are that he wanted nearly $3,000 for
something that takes less than $300 worth of steel and $200 worth of ACME
stuff, his was obviously homebuilt with rough cuts and welds of
questionable quality and he did use plain old all-thread so you can
eliminate the $200 ACME part from his cost. The other factor is I just
want to build it for me, not go into competition with him.
If I build this, I will TIG it up, I will improve and make it safer with
some physical stops rather then depending on the weight on the threads to
hold the weight.
The problem for me is that I am not a engineer and I am not sure how to
build the gearing parts but I have done very little else besides web
surfing the last 2 days looking and trying to learn. This list helped a
lot by giving the names of some parts and the terminology to google for. I
only 2 took pictures of it because I was going to buy it but my wife
knocked some sense into me when she started mentioning how many tools I
could buy with that kind of money if I built my own.
After looking at the cost of the ACME stuff, I started wondering about
hydraulics but I need to move 2 items 3ft apart in unison and not sure if
that will work, 4 pistons one on each corner might work but they need to
more equally. Think I will stay with stuff that I know very little about
but a little more than hydraulics. The steel part, welding, etc. is the
extremely easy part for me.
If I build it I will brag
Mike
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