Questions, answered

A digital STL file that you download. Nothing is posted to you. The design is finished and ready to machine, so there is no modelling work left for you to do.

CNC routers, laser engravers and 3D printers. The reliefs are sculpted for clean carving, and they open in Vectric Aspire, VCarve Pro, Carveco, ArtCAM, Fusion 360 and any other package that imports STL.

Yes. Scale it in your CAM software to the size and depth your material and machine allow. Most buyers scale a relief to fit the blank they already have.

If your machine cuts 3D toolpaths from an STL, yes. Detail depends on your bit and your material rather than on the file, so a smaller ball nose on a finish pass gives the crispest result.

Use Cut Local. Tell us what you want made and makers near you send quotes with their price and lead time. You choose one and pay them directly, and the finished piece is real wood, not a file.

Paddle, at paddle.com. They are our authorised reseller and merchant of record, which means they are the seller for tax and consumer-protection purposes, they issue your receipt, and they handle billing and card security. We never see or store card numbers.

A Paddle company, and which one depends on where you are. United States: Paddle.com Inc., incorporated in the United States, at 3811 Ditmars Blvd #1071, Astoria, New York, NY 11105-1803, USA. Canada: Paddle.com (Canada) Ltd., incorporated in Canada, at 22 Adelaide Street West, Suite 3400, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 4E3, Canada. Everywhere else: Paddle.com Market Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 08172165, at 30 Old Bailey, London, EC4M 7AU, United Kingdom. So a buyer in the United States is contracting with a New York company, and a buyer in Canada with a Toronto one. You can check any of them on Paddle's own buyer terms.

Card details are entered on Paddle, never on our site, and we never see or store a card number. Paddle is an established payment company that handles billing, fraud checks and tax for thousands of software and digital sellers.

Prices are shown in US dollars and the site can display them converted for you. Checkout charges natively in EUR, GBP, CAD and AUD, and everything else in USD. Any sales tax, VAT or GST is calculated and collected by Paddle at checkout based on your billing country.

No. You can buy as a guest. An account is still worth having because it keeps every file you have ever bought in one place, ready to download again at any time.

Straight away. A download link is emailed to you the moment payment goes through, and the same file appears in your account dashboard.

Yes, and it is free forever. Sign in to your account and download it again, or use the "Resend my downloads" page and we will email your links back to you. Keep your own backup too.

Indefinitely. Your purchases stay in your account, and re-downloading never costs anything.

Yes. Commercial use is included with every design. Carve, print or engrave it and sell the finished physical pieces, with no extra licence and no royalty.

Sharing, reselling or redistributing the digital file itself, in any form, including a modified version. The licence covers the physical things you make, not the file. Your download access is personal and cannot be passed on.

Yes. You have 14 days from purchase to cancel for a full refund, for any reason, and you do not have to explain why. Once a refund is issued your licence ends and you agree to delete any copies you downloaded.

Email jolly@digitalchiselco.com within 14 days with your order number or the email you used at checkout, or contact Paddle using the receipt they sent you. Refunds are usually processed within two business days and take 5 to 10 business days to appear on your statement.

Reply to your order email or write to jolly@digitalchiselco.com. A real person reads every message, and a direct fix is nearly always faster than a bank chargeback.

Yes. The free files page has a starter pack you can download without paying, so you can test how our reliefs carve on your own machine before you spend anything.

The bundle builder lets you pick 5 designs from $25. The membership is a single one-time payment that delivers a set number of files each month for the length of the plan. It never renews automatically and you are never charged again.

Ask on the request page. If several people want the same subject it moves up the queue, and requested designs are released to the whole catalogue.

Nothing. Applying, being listed in the maker directory and having a public profile are all free. There is no joining fee, no monthly fee and no subscription.

A credit is spent only when you send a quote on a job. One quote costs one credit. Browsing jobs, reading the buyer's brief, messaging a buyer after you are awarded, and completing the work all cost nothing. Editing a quote you have already sent on the same job is also free.

10 credits for $8, 30 credits for $21, 75 credits for $45. That works out between 60c and 80c per quote, and the bigger packs are cheaper per quote. Credits never expire.

No. Approved founding makers start with 10 free credits, so your first 10 quotes cost you nothing. You only buy more once you have seen the jobs for yourself.

To keep quoting serious. A buyer who posts a job should get two or three considered quotes from makers who genuinely want the work, not twenty copy-paste replies. The credit is deliberately small: it costs a spammer real money, and it costs you less than a coffee to win a job worth hundreds.

No. The credit pays for the quote, not the outcome, so quote the jobs that genuinely suit your shop rather than every job on the board. If a job is cancelled by us or turns out to be fraudulent, we refund the credits of everyone who quoted it.

The buyer pays you directly, on the terms the two of you agree, by whatever method suits you both: PayPal, Wise, bank transfer or a local method. We are not in the middle of that payment and we never hold your money.

When a job is marked complete, we charge 3% of the job value. That is the only cut we take, and it applies only to work you actually won and completed. No win, no fee. You keep 97% of every job, minus whatever your own payment provider charges you.

Fees accumulate on your account. We raise an invoice once they reach $5, or every 45 days, whichever comes first, and you have 14 days to pay it from your maker dashboard by card. Small jobs therefore do not generate a payment request each time. If an invoice goes overdue, quoting pauses until it is settled, and nothing else about your account changes.

Tell us before you mark the job complete. We do not charge a success fee on money you never received, and we act on the buyer. Agreeing a deposit before you start is the surest protection, and most makers ask for one on larger pieces.

Say you quote a $300 carving. The quote costs one credit, about 60c to 80c. You win, and the buyer pays you $300 directly. Our fee is $9. Your total cost for that job is under $10.

From our own buyers. People find a design here, love it, and have no machine to make it, so they ask for it to be built locally. The design file is already in hand, which means no design work, no revisions on artwork, and no chasing files.

Jobs near you, matched on the machines and materials you listed, plus any job where a buyer has picked you specifically after seeing your profile. You choose which to quote and you are never obliged to quote anything.

Yes, and this is the part worth building toward. Every completed job appears on your public profile with the buyer review, and buyers can send a request straight to you from there. Those direct requests still cost one credit to quote, and good reviews are what earn them.

Each won job gives you a licence to make that one physical piece for that one buyer. You may not resell or share the digital file, and you may not mass-produce beyond the job. That rule is what makes buyers comfortable handing you the file at all.

No. Taking a matched buyer off-platform to avoid the fee means removal from the network. The fee is only 3% and there is nothing else to pay, so it costs far less than the reputation and repeat work you would be giving up.

Anyone who owns and operates their own CNC router, CNC mill, laser or 3D printer, and whose work photos are genuinely their own. You should hold whatever business or tax registration your country requires, and describe your capabilities honestly.

Any. The network is worldwide and buyers are matched to makers by distance, so the more makers in a region, the more local jobs get posted there. Early makers in a country tend to see the most work.

A few days. We review every application by hand, check the workshop photos, and email you a dashboard link when you are approved, with your founding credits already added.

Your workshop name, city and country, your machines and materials, your star rating, your finished-work photos, and a record of every job you have completed with its review. They never see your email, phone number or address. Contact happens through the platform.

Any time, and just reply to any email from us. There is no notice period and no contract. Unused credits stay on your account if you come back, and any invoice already raised for work you completed stays payable.