The rings and the iris arrived and both are big failures.
I didn't have high hopes on the iris after reading what the others posted but the rings are a disappointment. It seems the orientation of the piece plays a large role in the print outcome. The 'z' axis doesn't seem to be the vertical axis when printed and I believe that's what caused the artifacts in the ring prints...
Will post more when i get home...some photos I snapped in the office after this post.
Regarding the Iris, I wasn't too disappointed with this as this was a test piece anyway. All the clearances were marginal with some down at 0.25mm but it all came out totally fused, even the larger clearances. Infact some of the bigger holes were totally deformed with excess material on it similar to the ring...
http://www.shapeways.com/model/7432/heart_ring.html
Regarding the ring, boy am I disappointed. It appears to be a simple shape and the only deformations I was expecting were to be in the heart shaped cut-outs.
As you can see from the last two photos, there appears to be excess material budging out at the 'top' of the print. It appears the ring is printed as displayed in the model preview [bah i even noted the z-axis is horizontal as a comment to myself when i uploaded the model].
The band is mean to be uniform in circumference and also 'thickness' but it bulges out in both directions almost as if there wasn't sufficient support.
On a side note. 'Rub 'N Buff' looks like it'll be interesting for the smoother materials such as the white/black details! Looks a bit odd on the WS&F as you can see in those photos but on the black detail its quite good...
Just wanted to let you all know we found the problem. It was a quality problem with the print material.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Best regards,
Robert
Thanks for finding out the problem so quickly Robert. Since my order (100582) was to test the capabilities of the WS&F material and this was a problem with the print material, would shapeways be kind enough to reprint it?
PS : To Joris - Did something change on the cookies? I can't seem to use the forums on firefox...
PPS : Got it working now... but the forums/webpage seems a bit odd in Firefox (Ubuntu 8.10, FF 3.0.5).
Thanks for finding out the problem so quickly Robert. Since my order (100582) was to test the capabilities of the WS&F material and this was a problem with the print material, would shapeways be kind enough to reprint it?
The 0.35mm clearance I used doesn't appear adequate for the iris in most places though in some places it appeared to have worked... I'll try pick at it with a needle to see if I can make the mechanism move
The rings came out in great detail though the printing 'layers' are still visible if you look closely enough. I'm going to order some more with a different orientation on the axes...
Search
Sad, writing this with my girlfriend next to me 
It came out great this time.