I don't care what you say, this thread is getting funny,
To Rock, as always, best of luck my friend.
To Rock, as always, best of luck my friend.
Tip Press
- Thread starter RocketQ
- Start date
haha
Seriously.... Why do you think I will not post pics. Come up with your own idea.
As a side I will have some of these at VF this year. I will try to bring as many as I have done. Again thanks to everyone for your support and patience.
Thanks Mike I will keep hammering.
John
Seriously.... Why do you think I will not post pics. Come up with your own idea.
As a side I will have some of these at VF this year. I will try to bring as many as I have done. Again thanks to everyone for your support and patience.
Thanks Mike I will keep hammering.
John
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Once upon time there was (is) a famous shop out west that was famous for taking on everyone's new ideas and making a version of it often within days of the idea being made public.
I used to call the company Creative Intentions.
I once posted that I used a durometer to check the hardness of tips and give them an average number rating (not my idea - I learned it from Guido Orlandi) and within days there was a "Tip Hardness Gauge" for sale from this shop.
FWIW Meucci also uses some kind of tip compression jigs. Kao Kao has a set that Meucci gave them the design for and they use them to press all the tips that go on Kao Kao cues. I am not so sure I like the way they do it though because theirs has a hole in the center so that they can remove the tip from the jig - but it seems to me that it would make the tips softer in the center.
They have done another set at my request with no hole and I have yet to test the tips done with it.
GL with the tip press business - hope that you don't get Creative Intentioned out of it.
I used to call the company Creative Intentions.
I once posted that I used a durometer to check the hardness of tips and give them an average number rating (not my idea - I learned it from Guido Orlandi) and within days there was a "Tip Hardness Gauge" for sale from this shop.
FWIW Meucci also uses some kind of tip compression jigs. Kao Kao has a set that Meucci gave them the design for and they use them to press all the tips that go on Kao Kao cues. I am not so sure I like the way they do it though because theirs has a hole in the center so that they can remove the tip from the jig - but it seems to me that it would make the tips softer in the center.
They have done another set at my request with no hole and I have yet to test the tips done with it.
GL with the tip press business - hope that you don't get Creative Intentioned out of it.
That sounds like what happened to Creative Inventions when Joe came out with his cue cases and, within months, someone took the idea to China and started making copies......
That sounds like what happened to Creative Inventions when Joe came out with his cue cases and, within months, someone took the idea to China and started making copies......
Yup, it was his dealers. Well what goes around comes around doesn't it?
Joe's cases and mine are definitely the most copied on Earth. Only I get the "satisfaction" of having been copied by Joe.
What does that do? You can't copyright a commercial item. You can only copyright artistic works.
You have to patent things like tools if you want to prevent others from making them.
It's sad but true. As someone who has lost more than ten million dollars in revenue due to copies I feel for those who invent something and end up losing out to scumbags who won't or can't innovate on their own.
Well JB it does give you proof of when the idea happened. Need it be for my purposes or someone elses. Sad part is it is not a difficult item to have an idea for. But I will be damned if my idea will get stolen and undercut me by someone else. Let's face it I am not going to get rich off of making tip presses. Honestly they are just about break even, If I charged what I thought I should no one would think about them. But I believe in the product and the way it is made.
I think what john is trying to convey is that a Certified letter mailed to oneself with the design plans, commonly called a Poor Man's Patent is actually worthless in the eyes of the law if someone decides to copy and sell them. The only protection a person has is an actual Patent and even if you have a Patent enforcement is very expensive.
Dick
Sadly someone is already trying to undercut you. Pretty blatant and shameless too. Kinda coincidental that he started a new thread claiming he had inquiries after your thread started getting hits and orders.
Now, if all boycott knock-offs, we'd be better bunch of people imo.
Now you Gentlemen wouldn't be suggesting that BUDDY FVCKING is alive and well in this forum would you?
I have no desire To build tooling nor sell supplies to anyone. When I buy something I like to get the highest quality at the best price. When you have a new idea it's pretty hard to keep the design a secret and at the same time sell the devices. Rocket Cue did the best he could by not showing pictures but that only stymies copies for a short while. Everyone on this forum knows that Lee is an entrepreneur who is quick to come up with a tool when he sees that a need exists and he can turn a profit. This may be bad for the original designer but good for the end buyer. What I have usually found is that copies are either built inferior so that the price is lower or the price is lower because the original is to high priced. The buyer must determine which is which.
Seldom is something really new brought onto the cue making scene. Bludworth said that he was making these compressors many months ago so this is not something new and revolutionary. This is the same with Uniques leather wrap machine, DeAngelo was first and was then put out of business.
Many on this forum have a real lathe and many a mill so with a little knowledge just about anything can be made if the operator so desires. This is the reason that everyone is always clamoring for pictures, not because they want to buy one but because they want to build one. When you come up with something to sell you have to realize there is going to be competition.
Dick
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Thanks Mr. Neighbors.
The first batch of 2 and 4 tip presses are finished. The singles I am still waiting on from the machine shop. For those who have sent money thanks and the 2 and 4 are on their way today. The single the day after I get the bodies back from the machine shop.
John
The first batch of 2 and 4 tip presses are finished. The singles I am still waiting on from the machine shop. For those who have sent money thanks and the 2 and 4 are on their way today. The single the day after I get the bodies back from the machine shop.
John
Just so we're all clear; what Joe did is stealing, what you have done and continue to do is a "tribute." Whatever helps you sleep......
DRPoolshooter
Registered
Tip press
Maybe I can get a patent for my idea for a tip press:
Also thinking of packaging my own special formula for removing shaft dents. I call it my Shaft Penetrating Impression Treatment - S. P. I. T. :thumbup:
Maybe I can get a patent for my idea for a tip press:
Also thinking of packaging my own special formula for removing shaft dents. I call it my Shaft Penetrating Impression Treatment - S. P. I. T. :thumbup:
I am sorry, do we have some sort of problem? Whatever I have ever done in my life I have ALWAYS given the SOURCE full credit.
What have I "done" that you seem to want to insinuate is theft?
What allows me to sleep well is the FACT that I know I have taken whatever anyone else has done in cue cases and added my own style to make them better. Right now I am attending a billiard expo here in China and at 90% of the booths there are BAD copies of my designs.
At 1 booth there are GOOD copies of my design alongside wholly original designs built on a great foundation. This is at the JIASEN booth. At the only other booth with original cases they are showing my WAVE cases with original designs inside and out.
I make two lines that are similar in appearance to my predecessors, the GTF cases which are like the Fellini and Centennial cases which are both OUT OF BUSINESS and have been for 20 years. Those two have been COPIED by It's George, Engles, and Thomas, so I think that design is pretty much public domain at this point. The only thing is that I didn't copy them, I made them better. IMO.
The other line is the J.Flowers tribute series, which is as the name implies, a TRIBUTE to the J.EF Q case that Jay Flowers made.
Do you feel you are stealing when you make a four point cue?
So let's be REAL CLEAR Ryan, if you want to call me a thief then be a man and say it and state why. Don't tiptoe around about it.
I have lost more than 10 million dollars and more than a million in PERSONAL INCOME due to to design theft and fought a legal battle which cost me $50,000 and resulted in a pretty much worthless victory. So don't preach to me about it unless you actually know what you are talking about.
The point of this topic is that Lee and Joe Porper are the kind of folks who wait for others to have a good idea and then they rush something to market and pretend it's their great idea.
Now, having said that, Joe also has had some great ideas of his own and some of his tools work really well. I happen to like Joe and Brigitte very much. I just don't like some of the choices that Joe has made regarding some of the products he has brought to market based on other's ideas.
Last year I bought a wrap jig from Unique. I don't know who came up with the idea of the wrap jig in this format. DeAngelo I think? I have no idea, I saw the one Unique had and I liked the way it works so I bought it.
I am pretty sure that Unique took the idea though and made what they consider to be a better product. Ideas are universal. Concepts are universal. Einstein said if I give you a dollar then I am a dollar poorer and you are a dollar richer, but if I give you an idea then you are an idea richer and I am none the poorer.
Unfortunately though we are in the kind of world where (some) people don't wait for an idea to be freely given or it becomes freely available, they just take it and run with it. In some cases this is tantamount to theft even if not legally so, and in others is just called taking advantage of opportunity.
In the case of the tip jig my opinion is that a tip press is not a terribly complicated item to make and certainly the idea of pressing tips has been around for a long time. BUT it is cheesy and sleazy to start offering to sell them when someone else has taken the initiative to go ahead and start making them.
If it were me then I would have contacted the person making them and offered to make them for them and tried to work out some sort of deal instead of just deciding I am going to offer them as well. If I could make them for less cost and in greater numbers and market to more people then it seems like it could be a good win for both sides. And that's the way it's done when it's done honorably.
What you have done is insinuate theft by Joe. This thread had nothing to do with Joe OR Creative Inventions and YOU threw both under the bus for no reason. Joe is a very good friend of mine and I take offense to your post.
What you charge Joe of doing is the same as what you are doing. Taking an existing idea and improving on it. So, YOU are calling yourself a thief and I just pointed it out to you. Sleep well in your glass house.....
JB Cases said:
JB Cases said:
How can you improve on something you haven't even seen?
I guess we do have a problem then. Well if that's the way you want it to be then that's how it will be.
I am sure that your relationship is very tight since your company is so tightly tied to Creative Inventions. I wouldn't expect anything less.
The thread has to do with people who TAKE an idea an appropriate it with no CREDIT (and no financial benefit) to the person who originally had and ACTED upon that idea.
My glass house is bulletproof Ryan and it takes more ammunition that you can possibly bring to crack it.
And if you believe that the Porper copy of my Instroke scallop design is an "improvement" then you are sniffing too much cocobolo dust and glue.
For 15 years I brought ORIGINAL designs and ORIGINAL interiors to the pool world. In 2007 I was ASKED to CREATE a style of case that is public domain. Thus the GTF case was born. In the cue case thread on the main forum there is a person who claims to have created the tooled leather case that Porper made. He says that he made the first case in exactly that style and when Joe saw it he went to a local saddle maker and had 300 of the m made. Where is the "improvement" there?
Maybe every time you show a new cue I should just go and make 500 of them and not even mention you. I won't acknowledge that the design is yours at all, I will just make them and sell them as if it's my original idea. And every time you think of something new and announce it to the world I will do the same thing.
Joe is your friend, everyone has friends. Those of us who have been around however know exactly what I am talking about.
So, lastly to put this in proper perspective, IF I were like Joe Porper and Lee then what I would be doing RIGHT NOW is cranking out my versions of Murnak, Erofey, Whitten, Talisman, and On Q Cases. And pity the poor casemaker who comes with a new idea or way to build a case because I could have a version of it on the market within weeks.
What stops a person from doing just that?
Ethics and Respect.
Title of this thread is Tip Press
Please argue about other issues in another thread.
Edit: The singles will be ready to ship by this weekend.
Thanks again
John
This thread is about a tip press. In the cue machinery section.
Please argue about other issues in another thread.
Edit: The singles will be ready to ship by this weekend.
Thanks again
John
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