We get to see a lot of amazing uses for 3D printing here at Shapeways, but this technique is new to me! Ben Godi from Italian company 3D Wood shares a really interesting technique that combines 3D printing and traditional wood turning.

In his words...

Hi I'm Ben and I would like to share a production process I have developed this year, together with a local wood carving company 3D Wood. We already use this production pipeline daily now, because it has so many advantages and Shapeways plays a major role! (how could it be otherwise!) I'm going to explain the steps with the help of two models that are for sale on my website.

I use Pixologic ZBrush for sculpting. It allows me to create and sculpt the model entirely on the computer from concept to final sculpture. I'm able to change things based on client's feedback quickly, with no need of making laborious changes on a clay model for instance. What I have to keep in mind is, that the outcome will be a physical object and in this special case, an object made out of wood. As you already know for sure, wood consists of fibers that grow in a certain direction. Therefore it's necessary to avoid thin parts that go across that wood grain. They break easily.

When I'm done with sculpting, I make use of ZBrush's "decimation master" plug-in and reduce the polycount. A super-highres mesh isn't necessary for printing. I use Magics RP from Materialize to combine all shells to a single shell and to fix mesh errors, in case the model has any. Removing shells is necessary for giving your sculpture a wall thickness later on. In Magics RP I also perforate the sculpture, so the dispensable powder can be removed after printing.

For production on the pantograph (see point 4 below) you need to work on a reference model that is at least twice as big as the final wood figurine.

That's necessary for transferring all the small details to the wood and makes it a lot easier to work with, because you must trace the surface by hand on the profiling machine later on. But before I order the big printout for production, I get a small version, ideally the size the final wood sculptures will be, to see how the model looks as a physical object. Whenever I feel something doesn't look right, I go back to ZBrush and try to fix it things like composition and balance.

Shapeways full color sandstone material is fantastic for printing prototype models it's really affordable and looks great. For production, I go for Strong and Flexible with a wall thickness of 1.5 mm. These models are pretty big, up to a total height of 50 cm and sometimes more. 

I fill the double sized plastic 3D printout with a special resin and mount it on a metal plate. Everything has to be assembled very strong to prevent it from bending or changing its position during tracing on the machine. The tracing itself isn't an automated process yet; you still have to do it by hand. And you have to be super careful. Oh boy, in a moment of carelessness you can ruin the whole row of figures! You start with some bigger milling heads for rough machining and switch to the smaller once for detailing. I use maple wood for my work. It doesn't change its color over the years and allows very fine details.

The figures that come straight from the pantograph look great but aren't finished yet. They need a lot of sandpaper work to smooth the surface. I add details with my set of small carving knifes and boost the ones that disappear during milling. Finally I paint the parts I want to be painted and add a thin layer of wax that prevents the wood from getting dirty.

If you keep an eye on some production restrictions, (wood as a living material, the dimensions the pantograph allows, avoiding spots that are difficult to reach with the milling heads and so on), the possibilities are endless!

Ben's cowgirl model is available in his Shapeways shop or you can visit his website, and see more examples of this technique at 3D Wood.

Do you know an innovative use of 3D Printing? Let us know in the comments and we can feature it! 

We're back with the fifth in our series of Shop Owner tips to help you get your shop ready for the holiday season.

1. Master the Basics: Making your shop shine

2. Function & Form: Which materials for which products?

3. Discovery: Getting found in search

5. Merchandising: Design for the occasion

6. Promotion: Go where your audience is

7. Fan Engagement: Put down the bullhorn and have a conversation

8. Data is your Friend: Statistics, Tracking and Analytics

9. Pay for Play: An introduction to the advertising world 

Your shop is ready, your products look great, so now it's time to promote yourself! We love the incredible designs that you create on Shapeways and we do what we can to promote you via our blog, the Holiday Gift Guide and our weekly newsletter. To get the most success for your products you can't just rely on broadcasting, you need to go where your audience is. 

The first step is to tell your friends, using your own social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and your own blog or website if you have one.  The next step is to go beyond your social networks, and spread the word to blogs and magazines, people who have a bigger reach than just you.

With your tags and description you already know who might be the best person to buy your product, so it's time to think about where they lurk. Which blogs do they read? Which blogs cover products similar to yours? For example, if you made something related to gaming or memes, reddit is a great place to feature it. Made something arty and gorgeous? Tumblr's your best bet. Does your product have moving parts? Making a video helps to bring it to life. Posting it on YouTube exposes it to a whole new community of viewers, and you can link your video back to your shop, and embed it directly into your product page.

Here are two great excerpts of ideas from our community members, read their full posts for more details.

Joaquin Baldwin describes how to make your product go viral in this informative post about his Seed of Ygrassil sculpture. 

Alex Delderfield shares his tips on launching new products in his Designer Spotlight about his Minecraft figures:

I wanted prototypes of the models printed, pictures for galleries ready, videos, various other networking and popular sites covered and a website all ready for the first day of my designs going 'public' to the world.

Have any tips to share? Post them in the comments, and let us know what you do to make your holiday season fruitful! 

3DEA's 3D Printing Pop Up Shop opens this Thursday with a sneak preview for Shapeways community!

Come join us from 11am until 1pm to check out the store, test everything out and meet other Shapies and 3D printing enthusiasts. 

3DEA is opening on Thursday, November 29th and will be open from 11am-7pm. 

Location: The Eventi Hotel, on the corner of 29th St. and 6th Ave

If you can't make it, don't worry, the shop wil be there for a full month, with a schedule of classes, meetups and events throughout the month.

Hope to see you there!

This weeks Designer Spotlight focuses on Stijn van der Linden, the creator of one of our most popular items on Shapeways: Gyro the Cube. He is an avid and prolific designer, and he also finds time to answer questions on the forum as one of our moderators.

Hi everyone! My name is Stijn van der Linden, probably better know as Virtox around here . I live in Tilburg, in the Netherlands together with my lovely wife and son. I am a work-at-home dad, so I juggle my time between housekeeping, changing diapers and late night sessions of tinkering, designing and programming. I have a college degree in Electrical Engineering and worked as a software engineer for several years, but shortly after discovering 3D printing and Shapeways, I switched careers to my life long passion of 3D Art & Design.

What's the story behind your designs? What inspires you?

Initial sparks often come from the intrinsic beauty found in nature, science and life: a twig, an atom or a kitchen sink. I have a particular fondness for using primitive shapes, such as circles, cubes and spheres and morphing them into the desired forms.

How did you learn how to design in 3D?

I am mostly self-taught, as a young kid I started with simple 2D graphics and programming in C64 BASIC. This quickly went on to more advanced programming languages and working with 3D in PovRay, a very elegant scripted 3D rendering engine. During college I had access to more advanced software, like 3D Studio Max which had even more powerful scripting languages and programming APIs. All this evolved to the point that I stopped using off-the-shelf software and I currently make most of my work with home-brew software built in C++.

What brought you to 3D printing with Shapeways?

In August of 2008 I saw a mention of Shapeways somewhere and I signed up for the closed Beta. At the time I thought it was mostly expensive and very complicated,  but I kept a close eye on the newsletters and forum and started to learn about the wonders of 3D printing. I tinkered about on the site, uploaded some models and tried the shop feature. To my shock and amazement, I sold something within mere days! Someone had actually bought Holey, a model I had designed years before and now someone, somewhere, was actually going to hold something I had once designed to be impossible to make. And worse, they beat me to it! So this led me to quickly place my first order and ever since I've been hooked on 3D printing.

How do you promote your work?

It has never been my strong suit, and it's hard to find the time, but I try to post updates to social networks as much as possible, such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, my own blog and occasionally to design blogs and websites such as Designspotter and Behance. But all things marketing, I learned from the Shapeways blog, as it contains a goldmine of tips, tricks and hints on how to promote your designs and shops.

Who are your favorite designers or artists? Who in the Shapeways community has served as an inspiration to you?

My all-time favorite artists are Salvador Dali, M.C. Escher and H.R. Giger. Their mind-bending work really sparked my love for art and I am very fond of surreal and impossible looking stuff! After four years of being part of this community, I must say there are so many great members helping and inspiring others, I could not hope to name them all! So a big thank you to ALL for making this place the success it is today! A special shout-out to Youknowwho, Magic, StonySmith and Stop4Stuff for driving the community forward and to Nervous System, Bathsheba, Unellenu and Opresco for making the most inspiring works. And apologies to all that escape my mind at the moment!

If you weren't limited by current technologies, what would you want to make using 3D printing?

Oh wow, well just about anything and everything! I can't wait to sink my teeth into an impossibly shaped designer steak, sit down in a fully personalized chair and strap on that pair of extra robotic arms to get things done. But this technology is evolving so quickly I really do not feel limited. If anything, 3D printing just seems to be the ultimate addition to any toolkit.

Thank you to all Shapies for all your efforts to make the impossible possible, you are changing lives and the world with it!

Check out Stijn's incredible designs on his Shapeways Shop, his website, or hop onto the forums and chat with him and the rest of the Shapeways community.