opinions needed

[Solartje]

Hi all,

i will be making some scorecounters for 8b, 9b, 14-1 to hang above a table, for myself and maybe to sell them here , or poolhall owners or on ebay.

now, for countring the games won in 8b & 9b, usually people use real poolballs with a rod in it.

now i have a question, for i make the first prototype, on what the "market" would prefere.

pea's :

I supse poolhall owners would prefere real poolballs that are visible from far for the spectators,
but most people at home would prefere what?

pea's so the scorecounter is small and not TO invasive for the space
small poolballs, wich are easyer to manipulate and recude the size of the counter.
(do u prefere the numbered balls (aka from 1 till15) or would u prefere for example 15 x 8 balls for player A and 15 x 9 balls for player B)
or just the pea's so the counter is as small as possible?

i wont post TO much info yet on the design, before its finished and ready to sell
but till now it looks like it could be a fun hobbie that also could give me some extra $

 

[Snapshot9]

The best way ....

is to go to a Handicraft store if you have them over there. There have different types and sizes of beads (that's what we call them over here) made of wood. Plus buy wire rod, fairly sturdy (from lumber yard if not at handicraft store) and stoppers for the ends of the rods.

You need 2 rods, one for each player playing, each having their own beads.

Buy red beads each 5 you plan to have. (10 beads = 5 bead red, 10 bead red; 25 beads = 5,10,15,20,25). If you plan to have a large number of beads, then just buy the beads that a Pool website has, like for 14.1 Pool, but if primarily used for 8,9, 10, 1 Pocket, then what I suggested first will work out best.

With the red beads at the 5's, it is not hard to tell what a score is from a distance. If you have 10 beads on each rod (pretty normal), and are say, racing to 21 or something, when a player has moved 10 beads to the other end, he just starts back the other way.

Just a note, but having more than 10 beads on a rod gets 'too cluttered', or is too long on the rod, and when you move one, it doesn't move very far, and is hard to distinguish the score then.

 

[PoolSponge]

From experience my personal favourite was one room had a full "rack" of mini balls numbered 1 to 15, solids and stripes to match the real deal, in order on a string with a white ball three times the size of the numbered balls as the divider and a mini triangle icon on the front of either side of the white divider. I liked it.

 

[Solartje]

thx for the responses already.

i was going to use the 14-1 counters from website, but just incorporate it into a wooden score counter. But with 15 competition sized ball it would be VERY big and VERY heavy. not everyone wants to make big holes to hang it up.

so i found 1" 1/2 miniature balls that would fit perfectly.

i was thinking of making 3 versions: one for poolhalls (big balls) , one for hometables (small balls), one portable (beads, but someone here already made them so i think one version is enough), but i wanted to start out with one model and see how it would sell. is there any interest?

anyway, just an idea after seeing shops ask 300$ for something im sure can be made alot cheaper. and stuburn as i am, i need to prove it

i think it would cost me around 50$ for the homeversion and 75$ for the big version in material, including the workhours (well... this is more fun, then work, but ok ), a small profit, i was thinking of 125$ for the homeversion and 150$ for the poolhall version.

just like the AZ ballpolisher, a AZ scorecounter.