WoodMarvels.com Blog

Comment: Hi Woodmarvels people.
I really hope you can answer this question.
Is it possible to make a full time income or
substantial income from Ponoko?

Correct Question

We got a question today from Earl that I thought a blog reply would be more useful. The question is essentially, can you make money with Ponoko? Asking if you can make money with Ponoko isn’t the right question to ask, the correct question is:

Are you ambitious enough to turn the products made WITH Ponoko into income you can live off?

Ponoko: A view into the future

Ponoko is an amazing opportunity that will have a short time line for ultimate success. Right now we are in the middle of two paradigms, on the left is traditional assembly line mass production and on the right is the advent of 3D home printers. In 20 years, retailers, customers and ultimately, society will have a very different view of products. This is the same thing that is affecting the music and soon the film industry and soon, I predict in less than two decades, the products industry. The point is, the value of items is already incredibly low hence why the cheapest seems to win… right now, on-demand manufacturing is more expensive in some ways but this will soon change with decentralization. Ponoko is the START, imagine being able to go to the “mall” and instead of picking-out a toy on the shelf, you go to a kiosk, tell the computer what you want and within 5 minutes, you have the physical product made right in-front of you. THIS IS HUGE AND IS COMING!

Being ahead of the curve

Back in 1996, I decided to launch a 3D animation studio… you have to realize back then it was incredibly expensive (our dual-processor industrial workstation cost 10 000US), unknown (manufacturing companies had no clue what we where talking about) and worse, the money just wasn’t there. i3DS was WAY ahead of the curve, we where the first in the region offering these services and it was like selling cars without the advent of gas. It was tough, so tough in fact, we had to get into web site design (a hot marketplace) in order to continue funding the 3D aspect of our business… a few years later, when web site design was dying as everybody had a relative who could make a site… our 3D business began to boom! We where producing 3D animations for television shows, industrial companies around the world and to my delight, we even got something shown on QVC! Years of investment AHEAD of the curve meant we where at the front of the line, and often, the only one in line, for glorious 3D animation projects!

Answering Earl’s Question

Earl, what I am telling you now is that, absolutely you can make substantial income with Ponoko but you must realize you are way, way ahead of the curve. On-demand laser printing is an incredibly small industry like 3D was 12 years ago, but once it becomes mainstream… you will become a regular at the bank! For instance, Amazon and other retailers are now looking into on-demand production to save costs, my own book which is about to be sold through BookSurge (Amazon company) is being printed on-demand when an order comes in. This substantially reduces inventory, shipping and other associated costs that traditional manufacturing is stuck with. We don’t know when Ponoko will become mainstream but they are on the right path and an incredibly talented group of people with creative designers, my bet is they are set for great success!

Buzvia: Ponoko.com, BookSurge.com, Amazon.com

We have now outgrown our current place. Our site has slowed-down to a crawl and we want to make some really needed upgrades to our entire WoodMarvels.com shopping experience. As such, our site may act a little wacky over the next week as we migrate over. Moving is never a fun thing to do but the opportunities it brings-on usually make it more than worthwhile in the long run. Thank you for your patience and we look forward to improving every aspect of WoodMarvels.com in the very near future!

Update Nov 16, 2008
We have now begun the process of re-populating our products database, we should be done within the next day or two. Our site already loads MUCH faster than with our previous host.

As you know, all of our products on WoodMarvels.com come with a 3D animation showing assembly to give you a better idea of how our models are built. This feature alone gives us a lot of attention and hasn’t been copied elsewhere (so far) and with the introduction of custom music to go along with said 3D wood animations, the bar was raised even higher for our industry! To keep our costs down, we decided almost from the very beginning to use a third party to host our videos, and so far, it has worked-out great… so far.

Why we love(d) Revver.com

Revver is/was a great video sharing site, not only did they cover the bandwidth costs but they have a very easy to use user interface and even gave us an extra stream of revenue to boot! Since November, their system has been on the fritz but so far, all the videos they do have of ours do play fine. We just cannot upload any new ones until they get their main site back online. Revver has been in trouble for some while financially and being offline for days at a time (including right now) isn’t helping their bottom line nor confidence in their product. It is somewhat sad to see such a great idea slowly go into obscurity.

Here is a 3D animation of our lobster as run on Revver.com

Why we love Viddler.com

Back when we started WoodMarvels.com, it was a dead heat between using Revver.com or Viddler.com to host our videos. They are both very similar though Viddler doesn’t have a well-developed revenue sharing system like Revver did, that was always a secondary concern to us. Their user interface and statistical systems aren’t to the same level of “ease of use” as Revver but should Revver go offline, we will be switching all our videos over to use the Viddler system.

Here is a 3D animation of our lobster as run on Viddler.com

Why not switch now?

Our biggest issue is simply time, it would take a few days of straight editing to get all our videos from one system to another, we always had a “backup” with Viddler, meaning when we sent videos to Revver, they where also being sent to Viddler (along with a few other sites) but changing code is a pain. Secondary to this, Revver has a larger following and community than Viddler, though this will probably change in the near future. We produce our videos for a number of reasons, one to help our great customers, to garner attention and marketing of our own company. Right now, we are honestly sitting on the fence, our videos load fine so our business isn’t affected and if Revver is down when we got to make an update, we will begin the Viddler switch-over or if all our videos go down, again, Revver will force our hand. Luckily, we are working on some rather big projects for WoodMarvels.com right now so it will take a little time before we need to upload some new stuff.

Buzvia: Revver.com, Viddler.com

It’s always important to review where things came from and where they are headed, our unique WoodMarvels.com Full Armor Gear series is no different.

Where it all began

The original concept behind the our Full Armor Gear series began with creating a series of “war” related wooden toys that still allowed plenty of room for non-war related play. Let’s face it, our world is full of challenges and developing a method of understanding its dynamics through play, we believe, is an important part of growing up. Nothing has pushed research and innovation harder and faster than when a country was at war, even space exploration pales in comparison to the dedication and investment puts towards, what usually ends up being, a more efficient series of killing machines. War isn’t fun, it isn’t pretty but it’s a fact of life that cannot be ignored.

Our current lineup

So far, we have developed three (land) vehicles in our Full Armor Gear series, our Full Armor Gear Bull, Transporter and recently released, Tank. Each one has plenty of storage and carrying capacity that gives just enough realism and space for creativity that a child needs in order to understand the mechanics behind engineering involved in war play. For instance, if you don’t have a method of efficiently carrying cargo (our transporter), an army is doomed to fail due to supply chain deficiencies. Without a strong method of defense and offense (Bull and Tank), you are unable to gain or retain any territory. There is A LOT of strategic and systemic thought put behind each of our vehicles, we don’t just view them as wooden toys, we view our models in this series as stepping stone towards developing winning strategies in life. For instance, why does our Full Armor Gear Tank have elevated wheels in the front and back? Why does our Full Armor Gear Transporter require a cargo hold that can be left at the scene? Why does our Full Armor Gear Tank have the capacity to carry with it a bridge that can support its own weight? We can continue to ask questions that you may have not realized where solved with this series, we hope this opens your eyes to some of the design choices we made in developing it.

Full Armor Gear Bull

This was the first in the series released, if features two distinct views depending on the placement of its “arms”. It features plenty of storage space, three large independent moving arms and very fast wheels.

Full Armor Gear Transporter This was the second vehicle we released under our Full Armor Gear series, it features more than enough storage in both the front and back. A bed that can be left on location and picked-up when ever it’s needed, rotating wheels and front arms and an incredibly strong design to limit the amount of trips to the local repair shop due to some misadventures with your child.

Full Armor Gear Tank

Our latest in the Full Armor Gear series, this tank features an incredibly strong and resilient superstructure that can take just about any punishment thrown at it. It has a 360 degree rotating turret with three large cannons, ingenious raised wheels at the front and back to aid in overcoming obstacles, incredibly robust wheels that will never experience a flat and to top it off, its own set of bridge to cross gaps left by adventures where no tank have been before.

Where and what format is the Full Armor Gear series available?

You can find our Full Armor Gear series on our main WoodMarvels.com web site under -Specials- / Series / Full Armor Gear and they are all available in both pre-cut kits with you being required to source the dowels locally and templates.

The Future of the Full Armor Gear series

Although we don’t have a set time line for the release of any of our products, within the Full Armor Gear series or otherwise, we can tell you that so far, we have focused on only a small section of our armed forces, the terrestrial one. There is an entire fleet waiting to be designed, from amphibious assault vehicles to an air force, even some that are meant for strategies out of this world, under it and beyond it. Essentially, the future is very bright and we look forward to adding to this series in the near future. In the meantime, feel free to send us feedback, we always appreciate it.

We have just launched our first calendar system, a unique pyramid calendar that always knows the right date! Using two sets of wheels to represent the day and month and a block underneath for the day of the week, you will never loose track of the date again!

This wooden pyramid calendar project is available in three choices to suit your needs. Digital PDF blueprint files, pre-cut kits using 4mm thick wood (of which you get two with every order) with approximate dimensions of 15cm high, length of 18cm with a width of 3cm and a 6mm pre-cut kits with approximate dimensions of 22cm high, length of 27cm with a width of 5cm.

You can find this WoodMarvels.com wood project under Category / Calendar. Enjoy!

We are happy to announce the release of the third in our series of Full Armor Gear brand… TANK! This amazing tank features a rotating turret (ammo not included), a large storage compartment, wheels that have a slight raise at both ends in order to aid in the overcoming of obstacles and if that wasn’t enough, it even comes with a portable bridging system!

The Full Armor Gear Tank is available right now as both digital PDF blueprints and a 4mm pre-cut kit whose approximate dimensions are 12cm high, length of 28cm with a width of 12cm using a material thickness is 4mm.

You can find this project by going to our main WoodMarvels.com site under -Special- / Series / Full Armor Gear.

If you want to call us a Ponoko fans, we are cool with that! But we have noticed something really neat, we are pretty sure WoodMarvels.com has by far the largest inventory of unique wood projects on their site. With this, we have been approached by many people regarding how we come-up with our ideas, what we plan on releasing in the future and interesting business opportunities. All these are good and fine but what really got our attention is that if you visit Ponoko.com now, you will notice 3 of our designs are on their homepage!

In the small squares, you will see our bus, a little further down, under “use a designer” our little brontosaurus and if that wasn’t enough, our site profiled under their “Featured Designers”. We take this as a great honor and look forward to a long relationship with such a great company that is really, our other half!

We have a bunch of new projects coming out soon enough, so hang-in there! Taking a break to gain new perspectives is always a positive thing. Adding music to our 3D animations has been a great success so that will be continuing from now on.

Halloween is a great holiday to have a party and to assume an alter identity. Kids go trick-or-treating to see who can get the most candy, neighbors dress-up their houses to look scary and generally, people have a fun time! We realize that having unique items to display will make you stand-out from the regular junk found at mass retailers that seem to change very little from year to year… maybe that is part of the nostalgia? We don’t know, but we are tired of it so we created some wonderful projects for carpenters and other wood enthusiasts to spread the holiday scares! Here are three projects, which are also available as pre-cut kits, which will surely get you and your friends in the mood for a frightful evening!

You can find all these projects at WoodMarvels.com within Theme / Holidays / Halloween.

Halloween: Sword Shelf

This is a relatively easy project to build which serves as both a shelf during the Halloween period and if you shine a light behind it, a scary shadow. If you choose to use 4mm thick wood to build this project, the approximate dimensions would be 37cm high, length of 47cm with a width of 10cm with a HUGE shadow many times that size!

Halloween: Serving Coffin Next up, our popular Halloween Serving Coffin. This item is great for sharing goodies with kids and adults of all ages. It features a very large storage area and is very easy to handle. It is also very strong and can take the normal abuse that happens during Halloween without any problems. It also comes with a lid to help keep the spiders from eating your chocolate or candy! If you wish to build it yourself, the approximate dimensions would be 15cm high, length of 30cm with a width of 18cm using a material that is 6mm in thickness.

Halloween Guillotine Serving Tray

Last but not least is our Halloween inspired Guillotine Serving Tray. Not only does it features a working guillotine but plenty of serving / storage space as well! This is a very unique design that will surely turn many heads in a safe manner! This project is a level 3 meaning it will take a bit more work to build but it’s easily within the reach of most wood project builders with the right tools and expertise. If you where to build this using 6mm thick wood, the approximate dimensions of your finished work would be approximately 30cm high, length of 19cm with a width of 24cm.

The Bottom Line

There is no longer any excuse having sub-standard, mass-produced junk during Halloween.

4mm thick Eurolite plywood never had it so good! We just released our promotional video showcasing our 13 dinosaur themed puzzles. This was the first series of wood puzzles we released and it lead to several series being produced afterwards. We hope you enjoyed our wooden puzzle videos, feel free to share your comments with us regarding these or any other projects you would want us to create for you.

You can find these puzzles on our main site, WoodMarvels.com, at Category / Puzzles

Our latest series of puzzles where themed around the Medieval age, they where also made from a larger mold with puzzle pieces up to 4.5cm in size with the total puzzle being 38cm square. Here is the promotional video for the entire Medieval Puzzles series. These puzzles are built using high-quality, 4mm thick Eurolite plywood which is laser-cut on-demand.

You can find these puzzles on our main site, WoodMarvels.com, at Category / Puzzles