With the introduction of the new Frosted Detail and the re-appearance of Silver, our production facilities have been pushed beyond their limits. As a result, some of you may experience a delay in delivery of your items. Let me take a moment and talk about the specific issues that we’ve run into and what we’re doing to solve them.

Frosted Detail

I think it’s fair to say that we’ve never seen a material introduction that has been as successful as Frosted (Ultra) Detail. Just within the first few days we received the same number of orders as we usually do in one month for the regular Detail materials and they are continuing at the same rate. At this moment, our printers are running 24-7 but it’s not enough. We’re adding more printers this week to match the demand. We should be back on track in two weeks from now, but until then you may experience a delay of up to 10 working days.

Silver

We’ve offered Silver a couple of times before in the past, but its current popularity is unprecedented. In addition, people are no longer designing small objects (like rings), but also beautiful larger objects of up to 10x10cm. It seems like silver has been discovered by a new breed of designers!

While this is fantastic news, it also places a heavy burden on our wax printers (which can take up to 70 hours to print a large model!). We’re working hard to add additional wax printers early next week and solve the backlog by the end of next week. Until then, you may experience a delay of up to 10 working days.

Detail

As if the sudden growth of orders in Frosted Detail and Silver was not enough, our Objet printer has broken down. We’re busy getting a new one - hopefully early next week. Once its in, we should be up to speed again in 4-5 days. Until that time, Detail orders may be delayed up to 10 working days.

What about your order?

As soon as we see that your order is delayed, we’ll get in touch and keep you informed of the progress. If you have ordered parts in multiple materials, we’ll ship the each part as it’s ready. Of course, if you have any questions you can always contact us at service@shapeways.com.

We’re sorry things are taking longer than you’ve come to expect from us, and we’re all working hard on a solution. Thank you for your patience!