fbpx

Archives 2024

Post GenCon 2024 – Recap

The leadup to GenCon 2024 was crazy-busy for us. We had hoped that it would be a successful show, but the level of response we received was overwhelming. What this meant was that the last 3 weeks post GenCon has been very busy as well as we worked on the 60 or so items that were custom ordered from the show. At this time, I’m happy to report that all but 3 items are shipped or sitting in the proverbial mailbox waiting to be shipped. The last 3 items should be ready to go tomorrow. Given that we had several special new designs, around 8 different species of wood to order and a range of product types, I feel we managed to keep our response time well within reason. We typically promise 3 weeks, toward the end of GenCon we started hedging our timeline with 4-5 weeks, but it looks like we’re going to be well within 4 weeks for everything. Thank you for your orders.

GenCon Post Production Images

IMG_20240813_151959938
IMG_20240814_160316690
IMG_20240813_215355833
IMG_20240814_150644713
IMG_20240813_152109184
IMG_20240813_215327603
IMG_20240814_170745939
IMG_20240818_174500788
IMG_20240814_171826976
IMG_20240819_222039195
IMG_20240816_163849366
IMG_20240821_141955896
IMG_20240821_141937279
IMG_20240821_154913192
IMG_20240821_141924802
IMG_20240821_154853339
IMG_20240821_155450770
IMG_20240821_190442045
IMG_20240822_133644513
IMG_20240822_133753020
IMG_20240822_133814419
IMG_20240823_123233801
IMG_20240815_144113360
IMG_20240823_105426674
IMG_20240816_163516095
IMG_20240823_123247969
IMG_20240823_105316922
IMG_20240818_173126342
IMG_20240814_175130667
IMG_20240819_081041310
IMG_20240819_221900745
IMG_20240818_173053932
IMG_20240813_151959938 IMG_20240814_160316690 IMG_20240813_215355833 IMG_20240814_150644713 IMG_20240813_152109184 IMG_20240813_215327603 IMG_20240814_170745939 IMG_20240818_174500788 IMG_20240814_171826976 IMG_20240819_222039195 IMG_20240816_163849366 IMG_20240821_141955896 IMG_20240821_141937279 IMG_20240821_154913192 IMG_20240821_141924802 IMG_20240821_154853339 IMG_20240821_155450770 IMG_20240821_190442045 IMG_20240822_133644513 IMG_20240822_133753020 IMG_20240822_133814419 IMG_20240823_123233801 IMG_20240815_144113360 IMG_20240823_105426674 IMG_20240816_163516095 IMG_20240823_123247969 IMG_20240823_105316922 IMG_20240818_173126342 IMG_20240814_175130667 IMG_20240819_081041310 IMG_20240819_221900745 IMG_20240818_173053932

Without getting into too much detail, I thought I would share some stats with you, just in case you’re interested. If not, skip down a couple of paragraphs. We sold 467 individual items during the weekend. Our newest product line — the ScoreKeeper Score Cards — did incredibly well, we sold 125 units. Of those, 61 of those were the DnD Character Sheets. The Phase 10 trackers were the next most popular, followed by Euchre and Rummy. Honarable mention goes to our non-existant Cribbage tracker — 0 sold. I say this because we must have had 100+ inquiries regarding a Cribbage board. Needless to say, we now have a Cribbage board and it will be available on our store page this week. I am still working on Cribbage set, which will include a storage case to keep your cards and such.

Our Pocket Towers continue to be a hot item, as we sold 81 in various wood species. Our standard dice trays were close behind with 80 units sold and our standard towers clocked in at 60 units. Our Modular Game Master Screens sold a total of 7 units. The biggest surprise and disappointment was our Deck Box sales. This was one area where I thought we would do much better, but ended up only selling about 21 units. Regardless, we were amazing at the response and support we had during the show.

Our 8′ tall dice turrent was a big draw. I saw countless people strolling down the hall just having a grand ol’ time and their eye would catch our big dice turrent. Some would recognize it immediately and respond accordingly with phrases like — wow, that’s huge, or I gotta try that. Others responded in disbelief or curiousity. Some even wondered if it was for sale. While we never put an “official” price tag on it, we offered it to several people, but noone came back on Sunday to pick it up. Oh well, I guess we can keep it and show it off to our other Con guests.

We also had some great booth-buddies. We were next to the creators of Flock Together which is a fun cooperative board game. It is chicken-themed which lends itself to some great puns scattered throughout. Congrats to them for selling out during the show. We managed to snag a copy before they disappeared and got the creator’s autographs on the box. Besides that, they were great people to chat with and we had a lot of fun hearing all of the chicken jokes.

We’re already excited for next year. The hope is we will be able to return with more and new product ideas, so stay tuned for updates.

We’re Keeping Score — Literally

If you haven’t checked our convention schedule, for the summer, you should. We’re going to be in Indy, PA, Atlanta and Evansville — oh, wait, that’s still in Indiana isn’t it. Right now we have a confirmed remaining schedule of 10 shows, but we have 6 we’re still working on, so keep an eye out as things progress.

We’ve just launched our new Score Keeper branded score and stat cards for various games. So far, we have Score Keepers for Euchre (Midwesterners need only apply), Rummy, Spades, Canasta or Hand & Foot, Phase 10, Pokemon and Magic the Gathering, Dark Tower, and a Dungeons and Dragons Character combat card.

I still have plans to work out a few more including a combat card for Pathfinder. So, keep checking back with us. So jump over to our shop grab a handful for yourself or friends and family. They make great gifts.

Gorgar Pinball Restoration Episode 05

Welcome to the Gorgar Pinball Restoration Project Episode 05. Its been a little over a month since I last posted and only a couple of months since we acquired this table. It is coming along very nicely and I’m excited to wrap this one up.

Since the last review, we’ve replaced a light socket, cleaned out most of the others with a wire brush. All of the red arrows had strangely raised slightly out of the playfield, so I used the heatgun to soften the glue and push them flush with the playfield. This was a whole lot better than what we did with the Harlem Globetrotter inserts.

All the rubber rights have been replaced. And the flippers have been mostly rebuilt. What I mean by that is I replaced both plungers, as well as the nylon sleeves. The left flipper needed a new crank and end of stroke switch. It looks like it had been hacked as the EOS switch was shorter than it should be and so the crank had some additional material on it so it would still make contact. I believe this added to the lagginess of the flipper. Is that a word? We replaced all the other nylon sleeves in the solenoids for the pop bumpers and kickers.

Both of the drop target assemblies were removed, cleaned, adjusted and new decals placed on the drop targets. Playfield switches all got a good look at with many of them getting adjusted so that ball contact with the rubber now triggers them. Lastly, I took all of the plastic off the playfield and flattened it and polished it. Most of them were terribly warped. I used a technic I learned from one of the Pinball Repair blogs and used a heat gun and a couple of panes of glass. As the plastic heats up it softens ever so slightly. I then sandwiched the plastic between the glass and sat a stack of books on the glass and allowed the plastic to cool. This worked wonders with the plastic.

I’m actually enjoying playing this table more than I thought I would. The rule set is deep enough to be challenging, but not so vast that there is just no hope of achieving any of them. My last goal is to touch up the paint in a couple of places in the middle of the playfield and hit it with some spray clear. I don’t have the resources to do a full playfield restore, but if I just touch up a few places, I think it will keep it nice enough for what the machine is currently worth.

Expect a final video in a few weeks showing off the final product.

Pre Con Prep Update

Starting January 31st of this year Silverwood Designs started back up production with the assistance of Silverwolf Illustrations. As of February 6 we are are up to 75 new inventory in WIP (Work in Progress) and climbing. We also will have at least 7 new images that we will be sporting at Geek Meet, on March 3, 2024! We have Four shows in March. Geek Meet is March 3, Awesome Con is March 8 – March 10, Indiana Comic Con is March 22 – March 24, Who’s yer Con March 29 – March 31 (Check out the events page for more shows). We will do our best to start updating our blog better but we can lose track of time building and finishing items. On an exciting note we were able to make it into the Maker’s Market at Gencon this year! That is a huge for us. We are both super excited for this!

Right now we are taking new product pictures so we can update the website and other fronts. If you are interested in our products we have now started selling on Amazon. It will not have everything there but it will have our more popular stuff, along with Etsy. If you want to see Everything we have and offer you can always go to our silverwoodwoodesigns.com Main shop. Of course you can always look at our events page and check out where we are going to be and say hi to us instead. We are excited to start the new Convention year! We are also working on new product ideas to introduce throughout this con season.

Let the 2024 Season Begin

Well, production has begun for preparations for our massive 2024 season. Its massive for several reasons. First of all, we’re going to be doing some massive shows. If you haven’t read my previous post, we’re returning to Awesome Con in Washington DC in March. We’ve also got the fantastic, Indiana Comic Con also in March, plus the Midwest Gaming Classic and GenCon, to say the least.

Shadow Tray

Another reason this season is going to be massive is because of some of the new products we’re going to be launching. We’ve got a new game or two, plus several new card storage and dice storage options coming your way. I was supposed to be off until February 1st, but my creative assistant couldn’t wait to get started, so we began production early this week. We have well over 100 new items we’re planning on making in the next 4 weeks in preparation for our first couple of shows, Geek Meet Indy and Awesome Con.

Silverwolf Illustrations is also busy putting the finishing touches on several brand new illustrations to adorn your favorite dice tray or deck box. Check out her Instagram channel for sneak peeks in the works.

Speaking of sneak peaks, we had our cell phone caddie on display for the last few shows of last year so we could get feedback from our fans. Geek Meet Indy will have first chance at purchasing the cell phone caddies with or without our Modular Game Master screens.

Deck Vault

Last but not least, we’ll be releasing our newest card storage option called the Deck Vault. This beauty has the storage capacity hard core Magic The Gathering Commander fans have been begging for. This card box will hold not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 double sleeved — yes, you heard me right — 4 double sleeved commander decks. Look for this monster to make its first appearance also at Geek Meet Indy.

Our other new arrival has yet to receive an official product name. We’ve had several people stop by our displays and comment on our dice trays and how they would make nice shadow boxes. So, we have modified our traditional design and added an acrylic slide-out panel and now you have a dice tray that can double as a shadow box to showcase your favorite dice. Optional display stands and wall mounts are being developed.

As you can see, while we’ve been taking some time off, we haven’t been idle. I hope you’ll help us make 2024, the biggest yet for Silverwood Wood Designs. Looking forward to seeing you at one of our many shows this year!

2023 Recap and 2024 Schedule of Events

It occurred to me that I had yet to post anything on social media in a way to wrap up our 2023 event schedule. I have to admit, working full time, trying to launch Silverwood Wood Designs and attending to my other responsibilities gives me little time to compile my thoughts. Honestly, I have the time, its just something I probably don’t prioritize if I were to be truthful.

For 2023, we ended up attending 26 shows over the course of the year.

In those 26 shows we visited 6 different states (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Washington DC — I know, technically not a state) not including our home base of Indiana. We did 2 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Themed based shows, 4 general craft style shows, 6 gaming centric shows, 6 Toy and Collectibles shows and 8 comic conventions. The shows ranged from less than a hundred to more than 70,000 in attendance (actually hit both extremes within 1 week).

We had a lot of fun, met some really nice people, saw a lot of great cosplay, and learned quite a few things about what shows work for us and what shows do not. Sadly, almost without exception, toy and collectible shows were our worst performers. So, as you can imagine, we are not planning on returning to any of them in 2024. Oddly enough, our general craft fairs performed better than the toy and collectible shows, for the most part. That’s not to say we didn’t have dudes in the Comic and even the Gaming Conventions, we sure did, Atlanta Comic Con and Frankfort Comic Con, sorry, not coming back. Con on the Cobb, we couldn’t wait to get out of there.

We did a little over 65% of our total sales in the first 6 months of the year, and we saw steadily declining numbers as the year progressed starting in July. What caused this, we’re not sure, but we felt like the shows themselves (with a few exceptions) struggled to met their attendance goals. All the shows we attended that were repeat shows for us in the second half of 2023 had lower attendance except for MakeVention. I believe that show saw a boost in attendance this year and it showed in our sales numbers. While our hopes for the last few shows of 2023 were not met, our overall sales numbers for the year doubled year over year from 2022.

Our last official show of 2023 was on December 10th. Since then, we’ve been enjoying some time off focusing on new product development, planning for the new season, and trying to figure out new ways to excite our followers. With that we turn our eyes to our 2024 season.

We expanded our reach in 2023. For 2024, we are going to continue that search for new and exciting shows to introduce our products and try to cultivate new followers. As of right now, we are planning on adding two or three new states to our schedule this year, Missouri, Pennsylvania and possibly Illinois. With this expansion, however, we are going to try and stay focused our number one market, gaming. Based upon the results of 2023, we have decided to drop outright 10 of the 26 shows we did last year. Our goal for this year will be to still hit 18-20 shows, but hopefully have them be more successful (quality over quantity).

Yes, you saw that right, we have added GenCon to our list for 2024. I received our acceptance letter for the newly implemented Maker’s Market which takes place in the concourse between the main hall and Lucas Oil Stadium. While we were disappointed that we didn’t make it into the main vendor hall this year, this will still be a fantastic opportunity to get exposure to the largest 4 days in gaming.

Missouri we’re planning on heading out to Oz-Con in West Plains in April, and we’re looking at Geekway to the West out in St. Louis in May. For PA, we’ve been accepted at 3 Rivers Con in Pittsburg in June and I’m hoping to catch up with a buddy of mine while were out there. Illinois has numerous gaming opportunities, including one I recently discovered called Heroicon in Decatur. I’m also trying to get into Adepticon up near Chicago, but they are full already for 2024 — so maybe next year.

Booking shows is not the only thing we’ve been working on. My creative consultant and lead illustrator and I have been busy working on several new products. Right now, we’re hoping to introduce them over the course of the first several shows, with the hope of having most of them available for GenCon including the 10th anniversary edition of the Silverwood Chronicles.

So, thanks for checking us out. We’re looking forward to all of the new and exciting shows lined up for 2024, and we hope to see you at one or more of them!

Gorgar Pinball Restoration Episode 03/04

This is really episode 04, but somehow, I lost 03’s post and the corresponding video. If I find it later, I’ll update this.

To recap what has happened since Episode 02, we were very excited that with just some minor repairs, the MPU (main board) booted to the game. This was very exciting as I have been working on a sister game, Williams Firepower, for several months now, and I still do not have the main board functioning.

The excitement was short lived as I inadvertently plugged the solenoid power incorrectly. I’m sure most of you have heard that within every electronic component, there is some magical black smoke that is used to make it work and when the black smoke is released, the components cease to work. Needless to say, I let loose a bunch of magical black smoke from under the playfield. This mistake was due in part to Williams (for some reason) placing the key pin on the connector as one of the last pins, thereby allowing me to shift the connector by one place which sent voltage to places it shouldn’t have gone.

To the best of my knowledge, I either caused the following, or I eventually discovered the following as a result. We continued to blow a fuse whenever the solenoids were plugged in. After several hours of trial and error, I was able to finally discover that the right kicker solenoid was locking on. I removed it from the power, and as a result, I was actually able to boot into a game and play, reasonably well.

More trial and errors finally allowed me to figure out that I had blown a transistor Q10, and at least IC 7, and possibly IC 6 on the driver board. Fortunately, my local electronics store carried those chips and I was able to switch them out. I also discovered that one of the leaf switches for the kicker had basically disintegrated. So, I ordered and replaced it.

Lastly, the sound board has been rebuilt with new caps all around, and I burned new eproms for the Green Flipper ROMS and the Gorgar code choosing to use a single chip.

Next on the agenda will be cleaning and adjusting switches. New rubber bumpers all around, and replacement of lightbulbs. The flippers will also need to be cleaned and possibly rebuilt, we will see once I get them apart.