I'm really disappointed :(

Really disappointed. I have a customer who wanted some custom ear plug flesh tunnels made for him with two symbols cut through. So I modeled them on CAD and sent a test off to be made out of Alumide. They came back and they looked good, so then I went ahead and got them ordered in Stainless Steel.

I find out soon that my model can't be printed because the walls are too thin... Fair enough, but the thing is Shapeways didn't even email me to tell me that there was a problem, I had no communication from them at all, they just credited my account with some store credit.... I was very unhappy about this, they could have at least told me that the order had been cancelled, and they say they emailed me but I received nothing at all.
I re-ordered them in White, and also again in Polished Alumide.

Only the white ones turned up today, and I noticed that I've been credited YET AGAIN, with store credit, and had no email explaining why my Polished Alumide ones were not delivered.

They are absolutely poor, in comparison with the original 3D model.


As you can see, the original 3D model render on the left.

I am just so disappointed.... my customer is now wanting a refund too because these were supposed to be a Birthday present for October, and I put these on order on the 15th of September. So now I'm stuck with this store credit and I'm not sure I want to continue my business with Shapeways any more after all of this....

Well I thought I'd just share my experience, if anyone has any suggestions then please throw them my way.

When ever you have a problem, email service. I'll email them to see what's going on with the communication, have you checked to make sure it wasn't sent to your spam folder? Without the scale of the items I can't tell you much about the quality you are seeing. I can tell you, I would strongly advise against using either WSF or Alumide for ear plugs. They are porous and will hold in all sorts of nasty stuff. All of our materials, except Ceramics, are listed as "for decorative purposes only". Any use out side of that is at your own risk.

Not to mention Stainless Steel ! This is not surgical stainless steel, you know - it has bronze infused into it. I've had customer's fingers go awful colours underneath s/s rings (even with 24kt gold-plate on top!).

Glenn

That and reports of allergic reactions as well. I wanted to warn him about using his currently printed items.

Crud, I hope the customer was not actually going to use them, bad,bad idea. But as a novelty item, fine. I have been worried ever since someone wanted a modeller to make some baby toys here, which horrified me.