One Bulk Order, Full Payback: How the xTool P3 Scaled a Texas Woodshop

Business Snapshot

• The Payback: One bulk order covered the P3’s cost.
• The Efficiency Gain: Production time for some large jobs was reduced by 75%, from about 60 minutes to 15.
• The Scale: Up to 500-piece batches and six-foot engravings.

In Weatherford, Texas, a two-person shop called The Woodshed takes on jobs most home workshops would turn away: oversized stair treads, full conference tables, 500-piece custom orders, and livestock show brushes for a regional FFA community. The piece of equipment that turned those jobs into a repeatable part of the business is the xTool P3. The machine paid for itself on a single commission, and it has not stopped working since.

One Order Paid for the Machine

Nicholas Bombardier runs The Woodshed with one full-time craftsman, his wife, and a steady stream of word-of-mouth. His side of the shop builds custom furniture, from charcuterie boards to epoxy river tables and full conference tables. His wife runs a separate retail line, producing laser-engraved apparel, leather patches, hats, and personalized goods for families in the Future Farmers of America (FFA) community. Together the two lines share one shop, one set of tools, and a deep connection to the local livestock and show circuit.

The decision to bring in a larger laser came when a single large commission arrived. The job was big enough to need a bigger machine, and it arrived at the moment Nicholas was ready to upgrade. He bought the P3 specifically for that work. The revenue from the order covered the cost of the machine. Nine months later, the P3 is still generating returns on jobs the rest of the shop cannot handle.

A Workshop That Outgrew Its Machines

Nicholas has been on the xTool platform for four to five years. He started on the D1 Pro and worked his way up through the F1 Ultra and P2 as the order book grew. The P2 in particular had been a workhorse for daily production. But the shop's work had drifted into territory the smaller machines could not cover. Large furniture templates, oversized acrylic inlays set into epoxy pours, and the kind of high-volume logo engraving the shop kept getting asked for all pushed the 12-by-20-inch working area to its limit. Jobs that needed more space or more speed took longer than they should, or simply did not fit.

Where the P3 Fits

The xTool P3 Co2 laser engraver & cutter  is now the station for the jobs nothing else in the shop can run. Furniture templates, oversized acrylic inlays, and conference-table components pass through on the bed. Six-foot commercial stair treads pass through on the conveyor. The shop's biggest single P3 run has been more than 500 round, 16-inch cutting boards, each engraved with a client's logo. The smaller machines still handle daily cups, hats, and one-off items, and his wife uses the P3 to cut small parts like miniature bookcases for her side of the business.

The P3's automated setup has changed how each job starts. The machine handles its own imaging, depth mapping, and height measurement. What used to be manual preparation now happens in the background.

From About an Hour to Fifteen Minutes

The most visible change is in the time a large engraving takes. On certain large engraving jobs, the work that used to run about an hour on the older machines now finishes in roughly fifteen minutes on the P3. That recovered time is what lets a small operation absorb larger orders without adding headcount. The shop does not run overnight, but it runs a queue that keeps the CNC, the smaller lasers, and the P3 feeding the next order without one station holding the rest up.

What the Numbers Look Like on a Real Product

The livestock show brushes are a useful look at how a small product carries real weight when the workflow behind it is right. Nicholas sources brush blanks for about $12 to $15 each. The P3 engraves each one in roughly three to seven minutes. At the shop's rate of $1.50 to $2 per minute of laser time, the total input per finished brush comes to around $20. The finished brushes sell for $35 to $45, depending on the design.

Before overhead and other operating expenses, that leaves roughly $15 to $25 of margin per brush. The product, the design, and the deep local demand inside the FFA community do most of the work. The laser is what makes that margin repeatable at the volume those families expect.

A Working Showroom

The Woodshed is also a stop on the xTool Demo Squad route. Nicholas hosts two to three visitors a month, with some driving four to six hours across Texas to see the machines in a real shop rather than a showroom. "I get to meet a lot of really cool people," Nicholas says of the visits. For a community-rooted business, a demo visit often becomes a word-of-mouth referral, a custom order, or a future collaborator. Several recent visitors drove in from far West Texas, choosing the extra hours on the road over a closer store.

Buy for the Business You Want to Grow Into

His advice to every visitor is the same: pick the largest machine your budget and floor space can support. Buy for the work the business is about to take on, not just the work it is already doing.

"The P3 is the one I should have bought earlier," he says. "If you're a small business and you can stretch, stretch."

Continuing the Journey

See how a Texas laser engraving business runs a batch, large-format workflow from a two-person shop, and explore the xTool P3 and the rest of the xTool lineup.