Just as the Inside 3D Printing Conference was winding down talks on the detriment of 3D printing services in the Silicon Valley, a new 3D printer retailer was popping up across the bay in Oakland, California. HoneyBee3D is the sunshine state’s newest source for 3D printed goods, after Deezmaker and AirWolf 3D (whose opening I missed due to marriage) in the Los Angeles area.
HoneyBee3D grew out of a joint effort by husband and wife team, Liza Wallach and Nick Kloski. Liza had already founded a successful jewelry design company and Nick had been successful in technical positions at Sun Microsystems and turning complex technical specs into understandable material at Oracle. The two merged their backgrounds into a single venture, HoneyBee3D in the Montclair district in Oakland.
The mom and pop printer shop currently sells Type A Machines and plans on selling other brands starting next month. In the spirit of the Type A community, they provide classes on 3D printing, currently offering an introductory class as well as a course on transforming photos into 3D models for printing. As Maker Faire Program Director, Sabrina Merlo, realized in her own visit to the shop, this fits in very well to the family-oriented neighborhood in which HoneyBee3D is located. And, with the store’s simultaneous role as a service agency, providing free rapid prototyping consultations and pay-to-print services, they’ll fit in perfectly with the tech-savvy region as a whole.
HoneyBee3D is going to be busy for a while. Not only will they be at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire on October 20th and the San Francisco Mensa Regional Gathering in November (after already doing a TedTalk earlier this month), but they also plan to open six more retail locations in the Bay by 2014.
Source: Make
