Live WooCommerce 3D Printing Store — custom print service, multi-channel sales, and WCAG-compliant storefront
Rare Form Works is a live multi-channel 3D printing products store running on a WooCommerce/WordPress stack. The site sells through the storefront at rareformworks.com as well as Etsy, eBay, and Amazon, with all channel revenue tracked through a unified finance pipeline.
The standout bespoke feature is a custom 3D print service: customers upload an STL model or paste a link, select a material — PLA, PETG, ASA, or TPU, each described in plain English — and receive an instant non-binding estimate computed in the browser from the model’s parsed geometry. Print requests land in a dedicated wp-admin area (a custom post type with secure file storage, a server-side download proxy, and automatic 90-day purge). All site email routes through Resend via a custom mu-plugin — no SMTP configuration, no mail plugin. A WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA accessibility remediation pass was applied site-wide through a second mu-plugin, decoupled from the theme so it survives future theme updates.
Built by Howarth Tech Solutions.
A WooCommerce/WordPress build where all bespoke logic lives exclusively in must-use plugins — no child theme, no plugin coupling.
WP core, all third-party plugins and themes, uploads/, and wp-config.php are gitignored by design. Only the four mu-plugins, .htaccess, and brand assets are version-controlled — keeping the repo a clean, auditable trail of every bespoke change with no third-party noise.
Everything the store needs to run a production 3D printing business across multiple sales channels.
pre_wp_mail at the mu-plugin layerwp_enqueue_scriptsThe engineering behind a WooCommerce store that goes further than a configured install.
The custom print estimate is computed entirely client-side from the parsed STL geometry: solid volume × infill/walls factor × material density × per-gram rate. No server round-trip, no latency — the result appears the moment the file is selected. All pricing coefficients (base fee, per-gram rate, material multipliers, build volume limit) are injected from PHP at render time via wp_localize_script, so admin changes take effect on the next page load with no code deployment.
All bespoke logic lives in four must-use plugins: rfw-custom-prints.php (print request CPT, estimator, file proxy), rfw-a11y.php (WCAG remediation), osh-resend-mailer.php (email), and osh-kadence-disable-broken-preload.php. There is no custom child theme and no coupling between plugins — each mu-plugin is a standalone hook with a clear, bounded responsibility.
osh-resend-mailer.php hooks pre_wp_mail, parses full RFC headers (From, CC, BCC, Reply-To, Content-Type), and POSTs directly to the Resend API over HTTPS. Every WooCommerce order email, password reset, and admin notification goes through it transparently, with no mail plugin layered between WooCommerce and the wire.
osh-kadence-disable-broken-preload.php disables only the broken <link rel=preload> tags that Kadence emits with filesystem paths (causing 404s), while leaving local font caching intact. A targeted hook on a specific filter rather than a theme override — Kadence can be updated without re-applying any patch.
rfw-a11y.php enqueues contrast and focus-state CSS site-wide at the mu-plugin layer rather than inside the theme. WCAG remediation — covering buttons, navigation, headings, and hover states — is therefore theme-agnostic: switching or updating Kadence cannot regress it, and each remediation item is tracked in an audit document.
The version-controlled repo contains only the four mu-plugins, .htaccess, and brand assets. WP core, all third-party plugins and themes, uploads/, and wp-config.php are gitignored by design. Every commit is a bespoke change — no third-party noise, clean audit trail, minimal diff on every PR.
End-to-end ownership of a live e-commerce product — not a configured install.
Rare Form Works shows what a production WooCommerce store looks like when the custom logic is engineered properly — mu-plugin architecture, browser-side computation, secure file handling, and accessibility built to last. If your store needs bespoke features that go beyond what plugins can do, let’s talk.
All bespoke logic lives in four must-use plugins with no child theme and no plugin coupling. The custom 3D print service adds a browser-side STL estimator, a secure file download proxy, and a dedicated wp-admin CPT — none of which exist in any off-the-shelf WooCommerce extension.
Yes — custom mu-plugins, WooCommerce extensions, and wp-admin tools are part of our web design & development service.
Yes — client-side file parsing and browser-based computation are within scope. See our software development service for full-stack and JavaScript builds.
Tell us what you have in mind and we'll come back with an approach and a flat quote — no obligation.