WoodMarvels Blog

The 1911 Ford Model T Torpedo Runabout model that I built a while back and was showcased at multiple shows was a great project to design. As you can see, I applied the principals behind this engine block (layering) and brought it up to another level on the Army Transport Truck I wrote about yesterday. This is why I often say that design is an evolution… you try new things and if they work, apply them to future models. You [...]

My latest design, the Army Transport Truck, was a fun model to build and as you can see, the overall design was decided very early as I always decide to build based off the wheelbase, but it took several different directions, each time, getting a little better and more inline with everything else. You can find this model at WoodMarvels.com under Category / Vehicles / Military. Army Transport Truck: Evolution of Design (720HD)

This updated design of a wooden Army Transport Truck was a fun project to design but challenging to animate using reactor and other automated scripting tools but the end result looks far more realistic than anything I’ve made before. This isn’t my first attempt at creating an Army Transport Truck but like the animation, this is a far more realistic representation of what they look like. After making the semi-trailer truck, I wanted to make another truck of some kind [...]

Yesterday, the influential Fabbaloo blog wrote an interesting piece about WoodMarvels.com‘s sister site, 3DMarvels.com. The site was questioning why there was such a sparse selection at 3DMarvels.com compared to TurboSquid.com and even WoodMarvels.com. I replied to his concerns on both points, basically, 3DMarvels.com just started in the end of September and WoodMarvels.com is now going 3 years strong! Secondly, I’m stuck in a rendering bottleneck that only seems to get longer… but no fear, time is on my side for [...]

I did a “guest post” of sorts for Ponoko.com’s blog which outlines how I produce the 3D animations you see with every WoodMarvels.com product. Link here: http://blog.ponoko.com/2010/11/19/a-marvellous-process I made this while working on Stephan’s amazing wooden tractor, as you can see… it’s a very time consuming process but in my opinion, well worth the effort!

Seems the WoodMarvels.com wooden Mars Rover has lots of legs here on Earth. Ponoko just blogged about the assembly video I produced and launched the other day. You can read it here: http://blog.ponoko.com/2010/11/16/mars-rover-build

Well, the Mars Rover came together very nicely… it took about two weeks from start to finish after I approached Angus of Hines Design Labs to do some testing for me (reasons why later). As part of the deal, I asked him to take some videos and photographs of the entire assembly process, from cutting to final photoshoot and I was blown away at how much material he actually did send. I was expecting maybe a video or two, a [...]

I’ve just completed work on a new testimonial’s page at WoodMarvels.com. You can find it under the heading About / Testimonials. I hope to add more content to this page (as with Press Clippings) as I find time… back to designing! The website is really coming along wonderfully now!

There are two great joys that I experienced with WoodMarvels.com. The first, is designing cool looking projects and the second, getting feedback from customers about how much their child enjoys their new toys! In this case, Richard cut out a Chinook Helicopter that was originally designed to be laser cut but bought the CNC router version of the file which I release a while later. The results speak for themselves. I enjoyed making the Chinook Model on my new CNC [...]

There is an old kids story about a train engine that has trouble climbing a hill but eventually succeeds because it keeps telling itself “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”. Well, I feel like that train engine right now. The wooden Opportunity Mars Rover was designed by me for the shier challenge and out of my passion for space exploration. I even wrote a science fiction book about the topic involving extensive research on [...]