I'd like to say..

[Draggar]

I've started a gnome for the sole purpose of tinkering for my guild.

His skill is at 119 now, and climbing, merchant diving for geerlok components etc..

Wow, I truly admire anyone who's been able to get >200 in tinkering, it is def not the easiest TS I've worked on, AND by far, not the cheapest.

Also, for the people who think you rake in the platinum hand over fist, they're gravely mistaken. Poured 6K so far (I know, it's not much) and I've only brought back at MOST 1K (thans to an aqualung sale).

My hat is off to you all (and thank god for donations from guild members!).

[Rainingdog]

Tame Tinker

Heh! I know exactly where you are coming from Dragg. I had no interest whatsoever in playing alts until one day, on the Glade board, I came across a post about 'taming your own tinker' in order to make bow cams for the Blessed Faydark bows. I started off thinking that I'd just level a n0me to lvl 16 and then grind it out...then I decided I'd lvl him a bit to help with the Intelligence score and therefore skillups...and pretty soon I had forgotten that I started this to help with fletching and just got right into Tinkering for the gadgets and the gizmo's. Fireworks rule! So, now the 'tame tinker' is lvl 57 and 223 tinkering.
But, you were talking about money and thats what I wanted to post about. I have always felt poor compared to my friends and a lot of that has been to do with Fletching, cos when others where out grinding or looting I was chasing around steamfont for Micro Servo's. So I never had much money for tinkering, but I have found that after the first burst and then spending far too much time in the caverns hunting for Porous Mineral Blocks that tinkering has paid for itself with plenty spare gadgets for friends. I think I started with 10k as my bank roll, this took me to about 180, I sold a few Aqualungs, Happy Dragons, and weather rockets along the way. At the level I was churning out geerloks, the 100 or so plat from the occaisional sale was enough to keep things ticking over with my last 1k or so going on all the gears,sprockets etc. I leveled the n0me to 150 in fletching (which was soo easy and cheap...) which helped with all those tinkered catapaults. By the time I was making shrinkers I was selling a range of stuff and so found that I was making enough money to pay for coiled springs etc in the bazaar as they appeared although I was helped a lot by a few Xanamech guild raids plus friendly Rogues and Necro's to do the run to Nitram. I think now, thanks largely to shrinker sales, I am about even, maybe a total of 20 - 30k.
Things have slowed right down though now and I have no idea how long the last 27 will take, especially with the lack of coiled springs on the market at the moment. Maybe I'll have to leave off raiding and LDoN's for a while and get down to some farming.
Anyway, it don't cost as much as you'd think, unless your in a real hurry, and also it is one of the most enjoyable thing s to do in the tradeskill arena, I have fired thousands of fireworks, I change the weather, shrink or grow people, supplied telescopes for dragon raids and stalking and a load of other stuff (but mostly the fireworks )
Good luck in your journey Dragg, and if I were to give you one piece of advice it would be this. You need to find some one to buy Steel Casings from Nitram in PoI for you, it'll get expensive without that, my shoppers are usually bribed with a Necrotic Diving Device and/or a Shrinker.

Good Hunting