u/rmath046

I'm a developer, and over the last few months I built a mobile app for putting together roof bids on the spot i.e measurements in, materials calculated, branded PDF out to the homeowner before you leave the driveway. It's called RoofBidder.

I built it because I kept hearing that the existing options are either overkill (full CRM suites at $300+/month) or the measurement-report services that cost per-report. I wanted something a one or two-truck operation could actually afford and learn in an afternoon. That was my theory, anyway.

Here's the problem: I've never knocked a door, never sat at a kitchen table, never argued with a homeowner about an insurance scope. So I'm almost certainly wrong about something important, and I'd rather find out from people in this sub than from a one-star review.

If anyone's willing to poke at it and tell me what I got wrong...workflow, terminology, what's missing, what's stupid. I'd genuinely appreciate it. Happy to give extended free access to anyone who wants to actually use it on real bids and report back. DM or comment, whichever.

Not asking anyone to buy anything. Asking for a reality check.

I recently inherited a workshop with heavy older machinery (like this green wood lathe) plus a wall of vintage hand tools. I wanted to start restoring and actually using them, but a lot of the data plates are scratched off, painted over, or just gone, and tracking down manuals or compatible parts was driving me up the wall.

I'm a software dev, so I spent the last few months building a computer vision app called ToolSnap that tries to ID a tool from a photo and point you towards compatible parts.

Under the hood it's the GPT-4o Vision API doing the heavy lifting, which means it's pretty good on stationary shop tools and hand tools where there's enough training data, and it gets noticeably worse the further back you go.

Pre-1950s stuff with no markings is genuinely hard and it will absolutely guess wrong sometimes...I'd rather say that upfront than oversell it.

Full transparency on the business side: the API costs me money per scan, so it's a paid app, but there's a 7-day free trial if you want to throw your worst-case piece at it.

What I'd actually love from this sub: what's the era or brand you've found hardest to identify when the paint and logos are gone? I'm trying to figure out where the model breaks so I know what to work on next, and y'all know this stuff way better than the model does.

I recently inherited a workshop and wanted to start restoring some of the heavier bench tools, but trying to identify the base models when the data plates are totally rusted off was driving me crazy. Google Lens was completely useless.

I’m a software dev by day, so I built a computer vision app called ToolSnap. It reads the physical casing geometry and faint patent stamps to identify the tool and compatible replacement parts.

It's a paid app on the stores (has a 7-day free trial since the AI costs me money to run), but I'm genuinely curious: for the heavy restorers here, what is the absolute hardest brand to identify when it's rusted solid?