Every machine on the bench paid for itself.
The whole history, in order — no investors, no loans, just print money becoming more printers.
- [2018]first ender — set up on the kitchen counter for a few days. hooked immediately.
- [2018]spare bedroom → print room. heavy-duty shelf built into the closet, LED lights run.
- [2018–19]raspberry pis + webcams — prints sent over the network, watched and filmed from my phone, before any printer shipped with that.
- [2019]first big job: custom threaded inserts for a model-making company. the $500 check paid for the printer. that's when I knew.
- [growth]every print dollar went back in — more machines, newer machines, a PC built to drive it all.
- [2021–25]hanna cylinders — started at the bottom, worked my way up to gm of a $15m/yr manufacturer. learned to run a business; the prints got better, the customers grew.
- [2025 spring]set up eight machines in the garage — nine months of proving the bench could stand on its own.
- [2025 nov]met lee at caje — a disabled vet building something special in this town. same beliefs. shared the shop downtown.
- [now]17 machines · downtown kenosha · the bench has never been bigger.
The bills get paid. The joy is the job.
I've watched adults hold a memorial lithophane lamp shade — a family photo, printed to glow — and not be able to speak. I've watched kids at Christmas open toys that weren't on shelves yet, printed in time for the morning.
We all have to pay the bills. But the joy of teaching, creating, and bringing someone's idea to life is what actually matters. Lee believes it, CAJE believes it, and the bench is built on it.
Straight off the shop floor.
Five feeds from the bench — every one a real job. Hover a feed to clean the signal and see it in full color. More cameras come online as the roll grows.
CAM 01
REC
CAM 02
REC
CAM 03
REC
CAM 04
REC
CAM 05
REC
Seventeen machines, every one watched.
I ran this room on raspberry pis and webcams back in 2018 — prints sent over the network, watched and filmed from my phone, before any printer shipped with that. The machines eventually caught up: every unit on the bench now runs its own app and built-in monitoring. The Pis taught me to expect nothing less.