Y'all ever have a design or something you made and posted get a lil popular?
I came up with doubled rebar drags a few years back , did some tweaks and played with he legs and what not to get one that was affordable and pretty easy to build but out preformed about anything else I messed with when it came to plowing and getting into and holding in gras pastures dirt ect. There's a few things about my design that you just plain did not see on homemade or most commercial drags to that point . Posted pictures and videos and remember alot of people not taking it seriously because....well I'm just some no name goober with a welder . Sold a few dozen and everyone LOVED THEM ! Shoot I got complaints about them not letting animals go far enough
But anyhow I don't really have time to make and sell them so I put all the info out there for people who wanted to make there own . Well that was 5-6 years back and I've been. Tickled pink to see my design being used more and more , could care less about the money or whatever heck like I said I don't have time to sit there cutting grings and welding on the point being the angles just right ect . I'm just happy folks can make some good working. Gear ! shoot I just saw one of dale billingsly's video where he bought some from a guy and holy crap , doubled rebar smooth rod points ....aannnndd the main lil trick that makes them work so well ..... Idk maybe the guy who built them just thought the same as me , mabey he saw my pictures idk all I know I never really saw them made that way till I put my lil information out

This type of thing happen to anyone else? I know there where a few innovative folks on her back in the days where they would post a little something they did then after a few months EVEYONE was doing it ......man those old posts like that where good times

Yup, seen corporations do it all the time. Little guy comes up with an idea, prototypes it. Puts it out there unprotected for all to see. Company copies the idea and the originator gets nothing. Company goes on and makes a bundle.

If you're an employee, the company pays you a dollar and takes your unrelated ideas, your intellectual properties and developments as their own; it's in the small print in the employment contract.

I worked in a factory for 20 years as a special machine builder making specialized equipment, from things like that to entire assembly lines producing parts.

I left there five years ago, all of management has also since left, and there are 1200 production people over there using things I dreamed up and created that have no idea where they came from or how it came to be.

A pat on the back is still a pat on the back even if u give it yourself
Good lead in too. Pretending to ask a question of others so u can talk about yourself is an undeerated approach

There's an entire trap company that does just that.... it's likely part of the reason no one innovates and markets traps, as soon as someone comes out with a unique, well worked out idea it will be copied and off shored.

So now you think you are the inventor of doubled up rebar drags with spikes? You’re a good guy wd, but delusional at times…. I’ve seen all kinds of crazy contraptions with the intent of adding weight to them. Long b4 utube was a thing btw……. Of course a while back I built a round thing and put a pole thru it to make things easier to move from one place to another.

If you don’t want to turn somebody’s lightbulb on, don’t tell, otherwise be happy that you’ve helped someone!

^^^yep

Maybe not a thing , but I created a new policy.

Years ago I worked in a large paper mill. One day I was training a young girl on the equipment in my area. We noticed one of the conveyor belts smoking. There was a bit of paper fluff smoking near a steel roller. I took an air nozzle and blasted it out and extinguished any small bits.

Standard operating procedure was to pull the fire alarm even though the fire was out , our in-house fire brigade would respond and do an incident investigation to prevent further occurrences and find any fault as to how the fire started.

I was thinking this was a great training tool for the girl I was training , how often to you get to use a fire pull box for it's intended purpose.

I told my trainee to pull the fire box. She was too chicken to pull it. After trying several times to get her to go pull it , I pulled the fire alarm.

Nothing happened. I tried pulling it several more times , nothing.

I pick up our in-house phone and call the guard at the main desk and asked him if he could manually activate the fire alarm for my area. He told me he couldn't , all he could do was reset one from his panel. I asked how I could get the alarm to go off. No idea. No plan. No policy.

So I get this idea , I go over to another pull box about 100 feet away that belonged to another department. I pull it , it immediately worked. Then I voice paged my boss to get him to go to the correct location.

Fire brigade responds and does their normal investigation. Of big concern was why the pull box did not work. An electrician took the cover off the pull box and found out that the metal support pole had been painted many times and during one painting wet paint dripped down covering the contact points on the switch. The electrician scraped off the paint with a pocket knife and it was good.

The fire chief and the safety manager made reports , this of course was reviewed by higher ups in the corporate ladder. Within two weeks , this became official corporation policy worldwide.

So now employees are trained , even though very , very rare , if the pull box doesn't work , use the next nearest one.

I never got any real accolades for this but , if it helps and speeds up response time , I'm good with that.

My book, The Lure Hunter, is like that. I described how I have found 4,000 crankbaits and shared it with the world. I have had people reach out to me from Australia, Belgium, Germany etc. telling me that it works for them too! Feels pretty good to bring some happiness to other people.

O I'm ecstatic little annoying though when you see corners getting cut and certain things not being done right and it not working as good as it should but hayyyyy

Hay that's pretty awesome imo !

Idk man I've been told there's nothing new or unique in the trapping or out door world anymore

I've had the same with some of my stuff ! It's definitely cool to have someone from across the world let you know how well what you do works

There's definitely less incentive to innovate knowing your idea will be stolen, manufactured over seas and sold cheaply once you work out all the kinks and prove its a great product.

The guy that came up with the push button socket release for Craftsman ratchets was in court like 20 years before he saw a dime, but he finally scored big time.

Racing is like that, teams have covers now that hide the underneath from "prying eyes".

Guy named Steve Kinser won everything there is to win in a sprintcar, couple times over.
They use to say....if Steve shows up to a race with a turd on his hood, the next week everyone would have a turd on their hood.

I designed the wolf fang earth anchor. But I never went ahead and sold any, just made them for myself.

Some here may know I designed and sold several skinning machines. In fact I’m certain I was the world’s biggest skinning machine manufacturer ever. I sold out every convention I went to and shipped them all every state in the USA except Hawaii. When I built my first machine I had no ideas of making them for others. I showed everyone on a few websites how to do it, but many didn’t have equipment, time, materials or desire to build their own. So they asked me to do it and soon it was full time. I retired from it a few years back and A&J skinning machines was formed to carry on building my designs. Many others have copied my designs for personal use and to sell. Whenever someone asked me I’d give them measurements and advice. They were going to build them anyway, may as well help them do it right the first time.

I bought one from you at Marshfield. Still works great.