Is Shapeways Dying?

[reinhardtjh]

I'm just sad to think of what it means to the various shops like Keystone Details.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Yeah. Me too.

I'm hoping a sustainable replacement rises from the ashes.

[mu26aeh]

Knock knock.

In steps https://3dcentraltrains.com/

[reinhardtjh]

Knock knock.

In steps https://3dcentraltrains.com/

I believe that Matt Herman, formerly of ESU USA LLC is part of that company now.

[thomasjmdavis]

Knock knock.

In steps https://3dcentraltrains.com/

Do they do anything in N? Everything I see on their site is HO.  Or is handled by the "Partner" sites? (which I assume are other companies they do prints for)

Edit- OK, did find some N scale shipping containers and roll off dumpsters.  I'll take a look through the 'Partners.'

[mu26aeh]

The partners do all the design work, while 3dcentral handles the printing.  Plate C was doing his own printing etc but now has 3dC do everything.  Like everything else, I'm sure them and their partners could adapt to change and offer designs in multiple scales

[bbussey]

They filed for Chapter 7 earlier today and laid off their executives.

[parke_STRR]

I had just learned that Shapeways was shutting down today. I was just going to purchase some N scale PRR P70 cars and bits form a guy who does them   

I had figured that since they jacked up prices in recent years people would move on to other sites. plus, 3D printers have become more cheaper and easier to acquire and give us roughly the same quality if not better than SW. the real loss is that a lot of cool 3D printed kits may become lost from their bankruptcy. like the P70 rebuild kits I was planning to get. I wonder if there is a way I can talk to the creator and get ahold of the STL files?

[Chris333]

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7214228916142534656/

[mu26aeh]

I had just learned that Shapeways was shutting down today. I was just going to purchase some N scale PRR P70 cars and bits form a guy who does them   

I had figured that since they jacked up prices in recent years people would move on to other sites. plus, 3D printers have become more cheaper and easier to acquire and give us roughly the same quality if not better than SW. the real loss is that a lot of cool 3D printed kits may become lost from their bankruptcy. like the P70 rebuild kits I was planning to get. I wonder if there is a way I can talk to the creator and get ahold of the STL files?

I've already seen one vendor, Model Train Industrials, mention on their FB page that people could contact them and discuss purchasing the STL files for printing at home

[bbussey]

How can they do that when the STLs are the intellectual property of the shop owners?

[basementcalling]

As Mike said, their market was doomed as personal 3D printers became more affordable and higher quality, but Shapeways blew up their own business by raising prices, increasing lead and shipping times, and most of all making their website damn hard to search and navigate. If they had not done the last 3 they might still be surviving.

Sadly, I am less upset by this news than I thought I would be when the inevitable caught up to them. Haven't even looked at their page in a couple months, and I used to be a regular customer for a few designers on there.

[mu26aeh]

How can they do that when the STLs are the intellectual property of the shop owners?

They were a shop owner

[C855B]

I've already seen one vendor, Model Train Industrials, mention on their FB page that people could contact them and discuss purchasing the STL files for printing at home

How can they do that when the STLs are the intellectual property of the shop owners?

Bryan, I think there's a slight confusion in the semantics here. By "shop", do you mean the individual vendors using SW as a front end? I don't think that one vendor is saying that they're selling STLs other than their own IP.

My concern is that SW was the only point of contact for a whole bunch of "kitchen table" creators. If a creator has lost interest and isn't keeping up with things other than receiving their cut from infrequent purchases of something designed a long time ago, those could easily be designs simply lost in all this.

It is possible that the liquidation trustees may put a value on the designer contacts dataset for somebody who wants to take a shot at being an IP broker. We have no (easy) way of knowing that. Maybe the folks here with (formerly) active SW shops like John ( @Lemosteam ) can keep us up on this. He and the others are about to be on the receiving end of a flurry of lawyer mailings because they are known creditors.

The website is still up, but apparently the shops database is offline now.

[bbussey]

Bryan, I think there's a slight confusion in the semantics here. By "shop", do you mean the individual vendors using SW as a front end? I don't think that one vendor is saying that they're selling STLs other than their own IP.

My concern is that SW was the only point of contact for a whole bunch of "kitchen table" creators. If a creator has lost interest and isn't keeping up with things other than receiving their cut from infrequent purchases of something designed a long time ago, those could easily be designs simply lost in all this.

It is possible that the liquidation trustees may put a value on the designer contacts dataset for somebody who wants to take a shot at being an IP broker. We have no (easy) way of knowing that. Maybe the folks here with (formerly) active SW shops like John ( @Lemosteam ) can keep us up on this. He and the others are about to be on the receiving end of a flurry of lawyer mailings because they are known creditors.

The website is still up, but apparently the shops database is offline now.

I misread the original post and misconstrued it as Shapeways selling the STLs of the various designers, rather than the individual designers choosing to make their STLs available to modelers.  My mistake.

The shop lets you put items in the cart but won't let you check out as that part of the system is offline.