Fourteen years of manufacturing knowledge — NASCAR prop builds, COVID face shields, prosthetic arms, Pat McGrath display rigs — distilled into the system prompt behind a single SMS thread.
Three surfaces
3DMikeP is not an app. It's a vanity SMS number with manufacturing judgment behind it — handed out on an NFC business card and reachable from any phone, no install.
Handed out at trade shows, makerspaces, set visits. Tap = opens a pre-loaded SMS draft. No QR squint, no URL typo, no business-card-to-spam-folder.
Outcome-focused questions, not "what infill percent." The AI asks like a foreman, not a configurator: "will this be on camera?" Reroutes to laser-cut cardstock when 3D-print would be wrong.
Pricing, process, and lead time delivered inline. Client picks → routes to Mike for personal review within 24h. The judgment is the product, not the geometry.
The funnel
A client picks up the card at a show. Five minutes later they have a price. Twenty-four hours later Mike's reviewed it and confirmed. Here's every step.
Client picks up the NFC card off the booth table. Phone-back to card → SMS app opens with the number pre-filled and a starter message draft.
No app to install, no QR to scan crooked, no URL typed wrong. The friction is gone before the first message.
Client describes the project in plain language: "200 prop cigarette packs for a film shoot." The AI asks the questions a shop foreman would ask — not the questions a CAD configurator would ask.
"Will this be on camera?" "Do they need to crush realistically?" "Indoor or sun-exposed?" These are the questions that change the answer by an order of magnitude.
Behind the SMS is a system prompt distilled from 14 years of running a 50-machine farm: which process for which goal, which material for which finish, which post-processing for which use case.
Goal → Process → Material → Finish. The gate routes "prop cigarette pack, on-camera, hand-crushed" to laser-cut cardstock, not FDM 3D print. That call saves $300 and delivers a better prop.
A visual quote card — process, material, lead time, total — delivered inline. Reasoning paragraph included: "laser-cut beats FDM here because grip-handled FDM cracks; cost is also 1/4."
Client gets the price and the why in the same message. No PDF, no portal login, no waiting for a callback that won't come during a shoot week.
Approved quote routes as structured JSON into the shop pipeline. Within 24 hours, Mike reviews every quote — adjusts if needed, confirms back to the client, and queues it on the floor.
The AI handles the front desk. The human handles the floor. That split is the entire product. No one's pretending the bot is the shop.
Two close-ups
Both are doing more than they look like they're doing.
Physical handout, doing the job of a website's hero section.
A system prompt built from 14 years of running a manufacturing shop.
What surrounds it
3DMikeP doesn't quote in a vacuum. Behind it is a real shop with a real portfolio. The conversation is the front desk; what follows is the shop floor.
The credibility layer. Project gallery, client logos, case studies. The résumé behind the foreman — where prospects go after the thread to verify "this is a real shop."
visit assembyl3d.com →The conversation layer. Live chat embed of the same brain that powers SMS — for web prospects who land via search, social, or referral. Same DfM logic, same pricing, same Mike-reviewed handoff.
visit 3dmikep.com →Approved quotes serialize to JSON and route into the shop's job tracker. Materials reserved, machines slotted, deadlines surfaced — no double-entry between the AI and the floor.
how to plug it in →One number, every channel. Twilio routes inbound to the brain; the brain replies with the same voice whether it's a stranger at a trade show or a returning Warner Bros prop master.
text 641-3DMIKEP →For non-shop readers
A few terms that get tossed around above. Skip if you've spent any time on a shop floor.
Open Messages, send anything — a question, a project description, even a half-sentence. You'll see how the thread runs in under a minute.