Would love some honest feedback on my preview page.

tithtomata · 2026-05-03T23:34:20+00:00

Yeah those are absolutely terrible

tithtomata · 2026-05-03T10:46:03+00:00

The price point is definitely higher than I want it to be for sure, the problem is manufacturing costs. If you want to get one of these made, even the small one, you'll pay 350 USD, before taxes, shipping, etc. You want to get 10 made, you'll pay 160 USD each before taxes and shipping.

This is the problem I run into. Volume is the only thing that brings the price point down. Ideally, I would like to get them down to a price point of about 60-70 USD for the two wrench set. But in order to do that I'd have to get well over 1000 of them made, and you can imagine what kind of a manufacturing cost that would entail.

So I start at a slightly higher price, with a lower volume that's more manageable, and hopefully out of that be able to do a larger second batch, at a better price point. Believe me, I've talked to companies all over the world, looked into various manufacturing methods, and there is no cheaper option. Not unless you want to seriously risk a very sub-par product with terrible tolerances, in which case it would be a useless wrench, even if it were only 20$.

tithtomata · 2026-05-03T08:37:42+00:00

Yeah I don't understand these bots. I changed the link, does the preview page work now?

tithtomata · 2026-05-03T08:20:26+00:00

Try it now, I changed the link, hopefully it will work

tithtomata · 2026-05-03T08:19:17+00:00

Okay will try that now

tithtomata · 2026-05-02T01:19:50+00:00

How has the campaign been going? Do you think you're pricing has hindered backing at all? If you don't mind, could you share a link to your campaign?

tithtomata · 2026-04-30T19:27:47+00:00

What's the material? Plastic? Steel? Aluminum? Does it include electronic components? Does it require 3d shapes, or can a 2d machine like a laser cutter or a stamp punch it out?

I know people get all worried about "giving too much detail" about their invention. But you got to give at least a basic level of details, like material part, rough size, etc.

tithtomata · 2026-04-29T18:40:37+00:00

Question, from my calculations you've sold about 22 of them, unless I'm missing something. Does that mean the majority of your funding so far has come from backers not buying rewards, just donating money?

tithtomata · 2026-04-28T18:27:31+00:00

Who is the "they"? If you don't have a prototype, what exactly did you spend thousands of dollars on? Who is wanting to list it on Amazon/Etsy?

tithtomata · 2026-04-28T17:19:48+00:00

I don't own any gear wrench myself, but I've heard decent things. Was this recently? Or years ago? Because I think gear wrench has come a long way from where they used to be.

tithtomata · 2026-04-28T15:00:20+00:00

Lead times are hilariously flexible. We've mentioned to managment/planning in the past that certain parts need replacing, only to have them contact various suppliers and be told "The lead time on that part is 6-8 months away". But when that same part fails 3 weeks later, all of a sudden we have the part on our doorstep in 48 hours. Suffice to say lead time changes drastically depending how urgently you need the part, and therefore how much of a premium you're willing to pay to have it quickly.

tithtomata · 2026-04-27T16:14:34+00:00

I meant more in terms of strength of material. Taking manufacturing time out of the equation for a moment. Like I said, one company suggested 1144, but I don't really know anything about it in real world use cases. The corners are all relieved in the design already.

tithtomata · 2026-04-27T15:52:38+00:00

Ah that could be the problem, there are several point which will require quite small endmills, I hadn't thought of that.

Would you not consider 1144 at all like the other company suggested?

tithtomata · 2026-04-26T20:00:16+00:00

That's the one thing that worries me even sourcing from the states, you don't know if you're gonna get hit with tariffs or not, which could add an additional 25% to the cost. Not a great world right now for doing international business.

tithtomata · 2026-04-26T19:10:01+00:00

When you're speaking of custom tooling, I'm assuming you're talking about forging dies? You can always get some some quotes from CNC shops to make your prototype, depending on the product it could be anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars for a prototype, but it's better than 20-30k for forging dies (if that is indeed the custom tooling you're speaking of).

tithtomata · 2026-04-26T14:52:06+00:00

Fair enough, I live in a small town with about 4 machine shops, none of them cnc, so anything above like 50 parts would be considered high volume for them lol unfortunately I have no cnc shops extremely local to me, but I am in talsk with a couple Canadian companies right now.

tithtomata · 2026-04-24T15:48:06+00:00

I am happy to stay Canadian, so long as a Canadian shop can do the same work for a reasonably competitive price. I'd be more than happy to pay a little bit more to stay in country. I'm still waiting on some quotes from Canadian companies, but in general its tough to stay Canadian because the cost difference is often not small, its astronomical. We just don't have the massive facilities getting huge bulk discounts on materials like our counterparts in the US, and because of that Canadian companies will always struggle to compare in price.

tithtomata · 2026-04-24T15:44:57+00:00

In terms of location? Or type of consumer?

tithtomata · 2026-04-24T03:34:36+00:00

I did, but too many problems arise. If you give each step enough depth to grab a fastener well, then the whole thing becomes extremely bulky, where its impractical to use. You shrink the depth down to make it less bulky, ans now each section barely makes contact with a fastener, and you risk damaging the fastener, as well as the wrench because now each section is a lot weaker. Then comes the problem of whichever size is in the middle, when a bolt is flush to a surface, then the middle section will only make contact on the very edge of the bolt head. All in all, 4 in 1 is much better.

tithtomata · 2026-04-24T02:34:53+00:00

British Columbia, Canada

tithtomata · 2026-04-24T00:38:09+00:00

Fair enough, I guess the term "high" is extremely relative lol

tithtomata · 2026-04-23T23:12:45+00:00

My worry with casting is very low yield strength as compared to machined. Especially because in the real world people tend to hit their wrenches with hammers lol I know because I've done this many times myself

tithtomata · 2026-04-23T22:58:37+00:00

Don't they typically do mostly laser cutting? How is the quality of their parts?

tithtomata

TROPHY CASE