{"id":29400,"date":"2017-02-17T03:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/?p=29400"},"modified":"2018-02-05T18:33:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T23:33:04","slug":"how-to-turn-your-hobby-into-7000-items-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/how-to-turn-your-hobby-into-7000-items-sold","title":{"rendered":"How to Turn Your Hobby into 7000 Items Sold"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Grant<\/a>

Grant 4-4-0 Metal – Zscale by Stony Smith Designs<\/p><\/div>\n

What do you doodle on the margins of your notes? Stay up late reading about online? Build communities around? Whatever it is, chances are you have something 3-dimensional to contribute to it.<\/p>\n

For Stony Smith<\/a>, who just sold his 7,000th<\/sup> scale model railroad accessory on Shapeways (!!), the seeds of that hobby were planted early on. His parents \u201cwere both very crafty, and very strongly into Do It Yourself,\u201d he told us. Today, Smith is a uniquely Shapeways kind of success story<\/a> \u2013 one that proves that, with the right tools, an individual\u2019s hobby can end up enriching a whole community.<\/p>\n

As we celebrate his 7000th<\/sup> sale, we thought it was a great time to ask him about the secrets of his success. Take note!<\/p>\n

Start With What You Love, and Make It Better<\/b><\/h3>\n

Stony Smith took his love of drawing, combined it with his love of architecture, and then, went 3D. \u201cI’ve worked with\u00a03D design\/drawing since 1974, but it was always limited to just 2D renders until 3D printing came along. In 2008, I started building a Zscale (1:220), but I found that the choices for buildings in that scale are extremely limited. I fumbled for a good while with trying to make paper model buildings.\u00a0Sometime in 2009, I read about Shapeways on the HackADay.com website, and thought, \u2018I wonder if 3d printing would work?\u2019\u00a0I\u00a0built a model [of a house], uploaded it, and received a \u2018Manifold Error\u2019 message.\u00a0After several misdirections, I redrew the house using OpenSCAD, and poof! It worked<\/a>!\u201d OpenSCAD is a great way to create 3D models if you have some programming experience, or have zero 3D modeling experience. Learn more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The real-life house that inspired Stony’s first 3D printed design<\/p><\/div>\n

Get to Know Your Community, and Follow Their Lead<\/b><\/h3>\n

Stony was immersed in a community of makers who all loved scale models, and who challenged each other to create and innovate.\u00a0\u201cSince 2008 I’ve participated in a forum of fellow \u2018Z-heads\u2019<\/a> and [I] showed the model to one of the members, Steve Van Til (RIP), who then asked me the crucial question: \u2018That’s cool, but can you make <\/b>one of these<\/b><\/a>?<\/b>\u2019 That’s where it all started.\u00a0I could blame all of this on Steve.\u00a0It’s been a never-ending cycle of \u2018That’s cool, can you make one of these?\u2019 ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stony's<\/a>

Stony’s response to “That’s cool, but can you make one of these?” The Taconite Orr Car II<\/p><\/div>\n

Embrace Making as a Pure Hobby (Unless You\u2019re Looking to Become a Brand)<\/b><\/h3>\n

Sometimes, you want to make a huge mark on an industry. Sometimes, it\u2019s better to let your day job be your job, and your hobby be purely fun (even if it makes you money). Stony stresses, \u201cThis is a HOBBY for me. There’s enough \u2018work\u2019 in my day job to keep me fully active. I get a significant amount of relaxation\u00a0and satisfaction just while doing the drawings, and that’s why I only work on designing things that look interesting to me or catch my attention.\u00a0I don’t need the distraction of trying to become dependent on the income. That would make this a \u2018job\u2019 not a \u2018hobby.\u2019 And\u00a0when someone takes one of my items, paints it properly and places it on their layout, then if I see it in a photo or IRL, the thrill of \u2018I did that!\u2019 is what keeps me going<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let Your Other Passions Inspire You<\/b><\/h3>\n

For Smith, a career that he truly enjoys inspires how he manages his Shapeways Shop<\/a>. \u201cMy day job is in high-powered big data analytics. Throughout my career, I’ve always been \u2018the computer guy.\u2019 There are a number of\u00a0methods\/tools from the day job that I bring over to watching the status of my shop here at Shapeways, like knowing that I’ve sold 7000 items!\u201d He\u2019s also surpassed $10,000 in sales, as we reported last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, what are you waiting for? Do you have a hobby you\u2019d like to take to the next level, but you\u2019re not quite sure how? Let us know in the comments below, and we\u2019ll be happy to connect you with the resources you need. Ask away!<\/p>\n

Cover image:\u00a0Ferris Wheel – Zscale by\u00a0Stony Smith Designs<\/a>, photo by Karin Snyder<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you doodle on the margins of your notes? Stay up late reading about online? Build communities around? Whatever…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":29409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[495,482,512,492,1616,1530,1214,487],"class_list":["post-29400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-products-and-design","tag-19-designer-spotlight","tag-6-inspiration","tag-38-interview","tag-16-miniatures","tag-model-railroad","tag-model-trains","tag-scale-models","tag-11-shop-owner"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/stony-cover-625x464.jpg","yoast_head":"\nHow to Turn Your Hobby into 7000 Items Sold - Shapeways Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What do you doodle on the margins of your notes? Stay up late reading about online? 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