Walk onto just about any jobsite and you're likely to find a tool that won't be on any shelf in any store. It's a tool of invention, born of necessity and forged by a blowtorch or welding iron in someone's shop, or held together with bailing wire or duct tape from the trailer. It's a one-of-a-kind solution to a singular problem on an anywhere jobsite. Chances are, that's as far as it will go.

But then there are guys like Larry Martin, a railwork carpenter who fashioned a new tool that takes the guesswork out of staircase layouts. Or Stephen Gass, a former patent attorney and lifelong woodworker with a Ph.D. in physics who used a hot dog to stop a saw blade in 10 milliseconds.

These inventors, and many more like them, have expanded their ideas for new and better tools from a single jobsite or weekend shop to the cusp of commercial availability. Universally optimistic despite odds that are historically against them, they pursue dreams of financial security, a better life, and a lasting legacy.

Inspiration and Perspiration

The fact is, less than 3 percent of the 350,000 patents issued last year by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, much less those imagined on a lunch break or lashed together on a tailgate, ever made it to the market. Even fewer will recoup the money their inventors have invested.

Tough odds, however, are hardly a detriment to tool inventors. "I've never been able to work it where I sell an idea to someone who'll pay me of make money for me," says Brian Giffin, who has three tools in various stages of retail availability. His Jack Rabbit combination drillscrew bit, for instance, is currently waiting for an infusion of cash to help push it into the mainstream marketplace.

Giffin and others like him have realized that inspiration for a new tool is about 1 percent of a long and arduous process. "The amount of. time and documentation is amazing," says Martin, who licensed his AccuMark tool to L.J. Smith, a national stair parts supplier. "There were moments I thought, `I don't need this aggravation.'"