I have an idea for a new “Jesus Fish” (you know those plastic emblems for the back of cars that have spawned a weapons race of Jesus, Darwin, Jesus eating Darwin, etc.) but I don’t know how to go about getting them made. Any Dopers have experience getting plastic widgets made?
I can’t help… but care to share your design?
You can try the Thomas Register. It’s a searcheable database of various manufacturers. However, resin casting isn’t terribly difficult to do, if you have the skills to sculpt your concept.
Thanks QED. That site is really overwhelming, hard to know where to begin.
And ruin my chance to be a bizilionaire?
I’d start by finding a few places near you that do the sort of thing you want (I chose “plastic prototyping” because I assumed you’d want to start with just a few units) and call them for a quote. If you need help dealing with these people, I’ve worked in the manufacturing industry and have dealt with this sort of thing. I can prepare technical drawings and such, if need be.
Thanks for the offer, but what I have in mind is pretty simple. I like the idea of starting with the places close to me.
“You know, I had an idea like that once.”
“Go on, Tom, what was it?”
"Well, I’ll tell you. It was called a “Jump to Conclusions Mat”, and there were different ‘conclusions’ that you could ‘jump to’.
“That is the worst idea I have ever heard.”
-Office Space (the dialogue may not be exactly accurate because I’m doing this from memory, but the sentiment remains ;))
And you said,
“And ruin my chance to be a bizilionaire?”
What are you? twelve? I’ve run my own company for five years now, lemme tell ya junior, if its as easy as a Jesus fish someone ellse will beat you it
Intellectual Property is tough as hell to defend. and if you dont even know how to make your product (as this thread indicates) get ready to lump it.
No, but I act like it.
Cut me some slack here, I just got laid off and am looking for something to occupy my time and maybe make a few bucks.
I admire people like you, EG, that have their own business. I never expected to wake up one day and realize I had worked for someone else for 20+ years. Now I have a chance to try something different.
Damn it, someone else already thought of it!! 
While the chromed 3-D plastic emblems are cool, you’ll have a much easier go at it if you start out selling your design on stickers.
Among other things, it will be feasible to order 100 or even 10, rather than 10,000.
The great thing about Jesus fish is that after you’ve made a few, all you need do is break a few and hand them out and there’ll be no limit to 'em.
Well, thanks to QED I located and talked to a potential fabricator today. Just need to bring in a Corel Draw file with my design to get a quote. I’ll post a picture when I have them made up.
Yay! I love it when a plan comes together.