Sacramento Inno

Aug 02, 2023

A company that makes and sells 3D-printed scale models of ships and other items is moving into space on the second floor of the Roseville Train Station.

Yestr Toys was launched in 2020, selling its scale models on Facebook. It is now expanding into the city-owned space in Old Town Roseville.

The company has 25 high-resolution 3D printers that can print plastic resin in layers down to 50 microns, and it needed to move manufacturing out of its founders' house and garage in Citrus Heights, said founder Eric Goggans. In 3D printing, computer-controlled hardware deposits material in layers to create three-dimensional shapes.

The company got a five-year lease on 1,000 square feet of space in a city-owned building at 201 Pacific St. in the historic district. The city approved the lease earlier this month. It will be the company’s first retail location, but most of Yestr Toys' business is online.

“We’re not counting on a lot of foot traffic,” Goggans said. “The business developed as an e-commerce site, and that’s what we anticipate will be the majority of the business.”

The company’s bread-and-butter business is making and selling models of ocean liners like the Titanic and the Queen Mary, but it can also make planes, trains, cars, figurines and decorative masks. It can make them at many scales, ranging from about 3 inches long to 3 feet. It sells them painted and unpainted. For larger models, it sells the components of the model which the buyer can assemble if they want to, Goggans said. They sell for about $50 to over $1,000 each, depending on the model. Yestr Toys' customers are generally collectors.

The business was started as a side hustle for Goggans and his wife and partner in the business Courtney Collins. They started the model business within an existing business they have called Fathom Cellars, which has a patented process for aging wine under barometric pressure equivalent to being 200 feet under water. That low-oxygen, high-pressure environment accelerates aging tenfold, Goggans said. The Fathom Cellars business is not currently active, however. Both of those businesses are side hustles for Goggans, who is a freelance engineer specialized in industrial automation and controls. In that business, he consults on wineries and dairies, among other industries.

For the time being, Yestr Toys is operated by the couple, but if sales continue, they will have to start hiring extra help. Goggans declined to disclose the business's revenue.