WoodMarvels Blog

I am doing a test about the three main social networking site out there. If you want to join me on any of them, just follow this link: http://buzvia.com/6PGSD

Jon

We have just launched our two straddle carrier pre-cut kits, one made out of hoop pine (9mm) and the other Eurolite plywood (6mm). Although we have had the blueprints for this model available for some time, it’s nice to finally offer them pre-cut which should save you a lot of time if you don’t have a shop or time to make it all from scratch yourself.

You can find the straddle carrier on WoodMarvels.com under Category / Vehicles.

We have also been busy updating some of our older animations to match the new “laser cut” look we established for the site earlier in the year and as such, finished production on a new 3D assembly animation for the straddle carrier as well.

We have just launched our first in a series of teaching aids to help fellow teachers get points across in a very efficient and fun manner using unique wooden products! This is also a great way to teach children the use of lasers cutting, using sustainable materials and environmental issues.

There are two variations and sizes of this clock, they both features extra big hour and minute hands, extra large numbers and second ticks. They are available in both 15cm square Eurolite plywood and gigantic 33cm square hoop pine plywood.

You can find both of these unique teaching aids on our main WoodMarvels.com site under Theme / Time.

Hello everybody, we are pleased to announce that WoodMarvels.com is now a Ponoko Prime member. What this means is all our pre-cut kits are now going to enjoy a SUBSTANTIAL price decrease, how much? Well, an insane amount! As such, we are able to offer HEAVY discounts on all our pre-cut kits. We are currently running through all our items adding a “special price”. For instance:

• our sturdy Platform Crane pre-cut kit we released just a few days ago has dropped from 74.95$ to 44.95$!
• our period Medieval Puzzle: Street Cleaners has dropped from 179.95$ to 79.95$! (Update: now 74.95$)
• our ever popular Mayan Temple Bank has gone from 129.95 to 74.95$!
• the Full Armor Gear Transporter has gone from 199.95$ to 99.95$!
• the Pre-Historic Dinosaur Collection featuring 5 different dinosaurs is now 59.95$, previously 124.95$
• our Ferris Wheel went from 174.95$ to 79.95$!
• our cute Super Snail is now 79.95$ instead of 144.95$!
• our Pet Bowl Holder is available for just 49.95$ instead of 79.95$!
• the Brontosaurus featured on Ponoko’s homepage has dropped from 144.95$ to just 64.95$!
• … and the list goes on!

If you have already ordered a pre-cut kit with us, don’t worry, the new pricing will be honored and the difference credited to your account within the next few hours by PayPal. In the meantime, we will be adding “special pricing” so all our inventory over the next few days. Feel free, if you don’t see the pre-cut kit you wish to order, to contact us. All pre-cut kits pricing does not include the shipping price. As a result of this, we are now discontinuing our pre-cut templates but of course, blueprints are always available

Our platform crane is among the first batch of designs we every created on WoodMarvels.com. It lead to the creation of our (later) mobile crane and a host of other ideas including even our Full Armor Gear Series! Well, before, this heavy-duty platform construction crane was only available as blueprints but now… you can order it as a pre-cut kit! What is even better is that you can order it in two sizes to suit your budget!

Our platform crane features a swiveling top crane, a very sturdy platform (hence its name) and is a lot of fun for any budding child wanting to learn more about construction in general.

Our smaller size has the approximate dimensions of 20cm high (depending on crane position), length of 26cm (depending on crane position) with a width of 15cm using a material thickness is 6mm. Our larger size has the approximate dimensions of 34cm high (depending on crane position), length of 43cm (depending on crane position) with a width of 23cm using a material thickness is 9mm.

Of course, if you are interested, our mobile crane is also available both in pre-cut kit form and blueprints.

Both of these items can be found on the main WoodMarvels.com site under Category / Vehicles.

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!