semi OT - homemadtools.net

[GEP]

I've been on the site for a while now. It's a handy place to collect all my tool ideas that don't fit well into the model engine sites I also frequent.

They award prizes for various accomplishments. Win "tool of the week" once and you get a T-shirt. Subsequent wins garner $25 per win. So far I have a T-shirt (I don't wear them) and $100 in winnings. Other categories garner other monetary prizes.

Their E-book is free as far as I know. Lots of folks sign up just to get it.

They will help you to sell your plans. They assist in preparing a package from the plans you submit, then market it. You get some of the money and they get a cut. I don't know the numerics since I don't participate in that aspect of the site.

One of the problems with the plan thing is that there exist a lot of clueless gorms who need instruction to chew their food. I posted a dead simple idea to modify a key so that it could be detected in the dark...

http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/tactile-key-identifier-34046

So far, I've had thirteen requests for plans for this idea! I can't even imagine how someone could construct a plan for something this simple. I'm very sure that if I were to publish plans, none of the thirteen would buy them. They probably ask for plans on every thread they read.

In general, the site is good as a source of ideas but poor in terms of the sort of information interchange one finds here. A lot of people sign up every day and you never hear from them again.

Like most things, it has a good side and a bad side.

You could cut the key the same for the front and back door.

[fixerdave]

The guy is selling a value-added service, and doing a decent job of it too. This is what the web is all about.

The "plans" are a great example... sure, you could go out and redirect traffic from his site to yours and put plans up for sale. Or, you could sign up, put the plans up on his site, and give him a cut. He's offering a service. Your choice if you want to pay him or do it yourself. And, let's be honest here... if you were into setting up a website and selling plans, you probably wouldn't have posted your ideas on a forum for free, now would you? You did give your ideas away in the first place. At least now you have an easy way to profit from them if you want. The guy created something extra, value added, that even the idea creators can use if they want.

The first thing I do when I'm looking for ideas is a Google search and switch to the Images tab. Google is linking to all those pictures (cached copies actually)... they are selling advertising while doing so... wouldn't it be nice if Google sorted them by category too? They don't, so somebody else did. This is what the web is all about.

David...

[Rosco-P]

They're ripoff sites in that they ripoff others work and investment - they promote and host free sharing of copyrighted works that are otherwise easily obtainable new at a fairly reasonable cost from the copyright owner or used via one of the used manual dealers. You're welcome to donate but personally I'd rather support Clausing, Leblond, and others that own the material and pay folks to maintain and update it as necessary vs a website owner who ripped it. I figure if I can afford an expensive machine then a few bucks for a manual wont hurt too bad, my last parts and service manual from Clausing was $6.

Out of curiosity, would you support those sites more or less if they shared current Village Press periodicals?

I don't what other sites you're referring too, but in the case of Vintage Machinery, it would make no difference to me. I wouldn't read the magazine(s) just because they are free.

Does it make it okay that "O.W." scans, reprints and sells manuals, just because they are an advertiser here? I don't think so.

[mklotz]

I've been on the site for a while now. It's a handy place to collect all my tool ideas that don't fit well into the model engine sites I also frequent.

They award prizes for various accomplishments. Win "tool of the week" once and you get a T-shirt. Subsequent wins garner $25 per win. So far I have a T-shirt (I don't wear them) and $100 in winnings. Other categories garner other monetary prizes.

Their E-book is free as far as I know. Lots of folks sign up just to get it.

They will help you to sell your plans. They assist in preparing a package from the plans you submit, then market it. You get some of the money and they get a cut. I don't know the numerics since I don't participate in that aspect of the site.

One of the problems with the plan thing is that there exist a lot of clueless gorms who need instruction to chew their food. I posted a dead simple idea to modify a key so that it could be detected in the dark...

http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/tactile-key-identifier-34046

So far, I've had thirteen requests for plans for this idea! I can't even imagine how someone could construct a plan for something this simple. I'm very sure that if I were to publish plans, none of the thirteen would buy them. They probably ask for plans on every thread they read.

In general, the site is good as a source of ideas but poor in terms of the sort of information interchange one finds here. A lot of people sign up every day and you never hear from them again.

Like most things, it has a good side and a bad side.

[justanengineer]

How is OWWM/VintageMachineryt a ripoff site? The host manufacturers history, brochures and manuals for free. You can find a manual for your old machine and download it for free, email others that own the same machine and get disassembly and repair information. Well worth throwing them a few bucks a year to help keep the site running.

They're ripoff sites in that they ripoff others work and investment - they promote and host free sharing of copyrighted works that are otherwise easily obtainable new at a fairly reasonable cost from the copyright owner or used via one of the used manual dealers. You're welcome to donate but personally I'd rather support Clausing, Leblond, and others that own the material and pay folks to maintain and update it as necessary vs a website owner who ripped it. I figure if I can afford an expensive machine then a few bucks for a manual wont hurt too bad, my last parts and service manual from Clausing was $6.

Out of curiosity, would you support those sites more or less if they shared current Village Press periodicals?

[GEP]

I e-mailed the guy who runs it after I noticed my stuff going up there. He said they have an automated script or program that pulls stuff from various places and he seemed a very agreeable fellow. He offered to take down my stuff, but my only problem was that the photos were lacking descriptions of any kind. There was one set of photos I didn't want up there, only because it was an in-progress project I didn't want to let out of the bag yet. He took those photos down, I created a login to the site, and he transferred all my project photos to my account, and we updated all the descriptions. I personally don't have a problem with it but I completely understand those who do.

The site has a book with all types of plans, Hotrods, car restoration, air planes, tooling you name it. I don't remember if the book is sold or free. I am on the site, any one can join. There is a dividing head that just was in my e-mail yesterday, looks like a easy project.

[JohnAlex141r]

I've had this a few times:

1) my "freely posted blog stuff" ends up on sites with advertising. (they are making money off of the stuff I give away);

2) A supplier we all know supplies "stuff someone posted on the Internet" as part of one of their products - looking at their stuff at one of the shows - it is MY stuff, used by them to help support their business;

3) A certain world-wide company that is a familiar name to us here relating to 3D products, uses some of my open-source software. (I know, because I helped them port it over). Now, I was paid by SOMEONE ELSE to write this software, so I did not really mind, but, maybe they could have put a "thanks for the open source software" but, nope.

So, as I am currently in a state of zero income, I now sell my articles to magazines. Rather than others making a dime off of my contributions, I think that dime should go into my pocket to help defray MY expenses, not someone else's.

(oh well!)

[Rosco-P]

The rather ironic part to me is that many who get upset by others sharing work they've publicly posted also support vintagemachinery.org and the other various manual ripoff sites.

How is OWWM/VintageMachineryt a ripoff site? The host manufacturers history, brochures and manuals for free. You can find a manual for your old machine and download it for free, email others that own the same machine and get disassembly and repair information. Well worth throwing them a few bucks a year to help keep the site running.

[justanengineer]

The rather ironic part to me is that many who get upset by others sharing work they've publicly posted also support vintagemachinery.org and the other various manual ripoff sites.

[Baz]

If pweople are requesting your plans create a login for the site, make a posting saying 'I got plans from XXXXXXX', knock out some plans and off you go. Don't have to be rip off prices, just a few cents. If he complains point out that he ripped off your content and send him an invoice. Once you have sent him and invoice for your content on his site you have implied contract terms to which he has to respond.

I don't know why people like plans for the most trivial things they should be able to make by looking at it but they do. Talked to a guy last night who had paid $25 for a stepper mount drawing that was just a box machined from solid with holes in it. Neatly drawn but contains less that 50c of content. Felt a bit sorry for the guy but he was oblivious to the fact that he had been ripped off.

[oldtiffie]

There really isn't much - if anything at all - that you can do about it - so just lie back down, make yourself comfortable, adjust to the inevitable and enjoy the ride.

[ed_h]

A year or two ago, I began noticing some traffic to my web site from homemadetools.net. I went there, and found some twenty-odd entries on the site that had pics of projects on my site. The homemadetools site doesn't appear to actually store any of my images or other material, but just links to it. Some of the pages say that dozens of people have requested plans, but no one ever contacted me directly.

I personally find this site less bothersome than some others, like pinterest. I get a a lot of traffic from there.

Even worse are some of these image harvester sites that just have pages and pages of seemingly unrelated images. I get traffic from dozens of them. cacheimages.com is a typical one. I can't figure out their angle.

Ed

[oldtiffie]

Or perhaps a case or so of being "holier than thou"?

I hope not.

[bborr01]

I too have seen the site. It has quite a few of my "shop made tools" on it. In fact, I think it was inspired by the shop made tools thread to make it easier to navigate the tools posted there.
My original plan was to do something similar but I am a machinist, not a web designer so it is probably a good thing in that regard.

Brian

[oldtiffie]

All to true.

Post it unprotected to the internet - if it is reasonably possible - and you have pretty well posted to the public domain.

I'd be very surprised if some (many?) here have not committed the same "sin/s".

"Let he who is without sin .......... "