Wooden Studio Stands and Travel Cases for Ae Modular

I'm just thinking aloud here ...

Sometimes business-models are tougher to build than the actual product.

Ikea figured that they could save on some labour and shipping costs by selling us the product cut-to-size but packed flat with some LEGO-style wordless instructions (saves on translation costs too). The cheap (often crappy) lightweight timbers they use reduce manufacture and shipping costs together (because quality timbers often weigh more). Once they got to global scale, they could get stuff made in countries closer to their target markets, further reducing freight and labour costs. Customers know all this but we still manage to imagine that some magic part of our new Björksta (in pieces all over the loungeroom floor) was still actually hand-carved by little woodland elves in Småland.

We can't really go to this kind of scale, but maybe there are some things we can do, depending how much flat-packing affects shipping costs (by sea, volume costs more than weight, whereas by air, both are important).

I like the idea of selling the plans. There might be enough interest for people to pay a donation after downloading without the need for copy-protection. Although you'd maybe make more on a physical case, the lack of costs in storage, materials, freight etc. might make it worthwhile. It would just be a trickle of money here and there but maybe worth the effort.

I am thinking to do something like this with the results of my own case-building adventures (so far, my case designs have actually damaged my AE instead of protecting it but, in retrospect, the standard AE housing was not really intended to be hung from a guitar strap and worn while jumping around a lot!).