How To Get A Product Idea To Market?

[Barquentine]

I have an idea for a really useful product for use around the home. I have searched online and am pretty sure it does not exist yet.
Does anyone have any good suggestions how to get a prototype made without giving away the idea to the designer/engineer I employ to help make it?

[Tuvok]

Try Lakeland

[Peaspeculiars]

Barquentine - I saw a video recently where a chap had a unique idea but didn't want to patent it until the prototype was made and tested to ensure it worked - The way he got around your dilemma was to split the parts required into 4 orders and ask different manufacturers to make each order so no-one actually saw the complete design, nor could guess what it was for - When the parts arrived, he put them together and hey presto - he had a working prototype and no one had the full design on record.
Good luck with whatever it is :-)

[Barquentine]

Thank you Peaspeculiars - I had that idea today too! I can get different parts manufactured by different craftsmen and other technical parts already exist for different uses but could be adapted to mine. I don't know if it's patentable since it hardly advances the state of art - it's an amalgam of existing products to make a much better version of another existing product - but it's something I'd buy if I saw it on sale so maybe others will think the same. I guess that's what market research will be about once I've got a prototype.