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Anyone used Shapeways since Brexit?


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I had a small order arrive recently. Nothing to pay on receiving here, but Shapeways postage is getting expensive.

 

I believe VAT, duty, etc is still hit and miss at the moment until everyone gets used to it, so it is down to luck of the draw at the moment as to if anything needs to be paid on receiving anything from Europe.

 

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I had three Shapeways models arrive on Monday of this week, the total cost, including shipping was less than £135 and there were no additional costs charged for VAT or Import duty,

The recent thread mentioned by simonmcp is here :- 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, David Schweizer said:

I had three Shapeways models arrive on Monday of this week, the total cost, including shipping was less than £135 and there were no additional costs charged for VAT or Import duty,

The recent thread mentioned by simonmcp is here :- 

 

 

 

 

Shapeways have an American base, but it started in the Netherlands and is still based there. I believe the overall system(website etc) is under control of American company, and the operation in Netherlands sort of works as a sub contractor.

Designers like me are based all over the world, I do the KESR stuff, and I am based in the UK. When you order an item, you are dealing with Shapeways not the designer, and the designer gets in effect a commission on the sale.

I have noticed  postage is costing more, but then look at any international post, apart from that from China, and it has been getting more expensive over past few years.

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17 hours ago, rue_d_etropal said:

Shapeways have an American base, but it started in the Netherlands and is still based there. I believe the overall system(website etc) is under control of American company, and the operation in Netherlands sort of works as a sub contractor.

Designers like me are based all over the world, I do the KESR stuff, and I am based in the UK. When you order an item, you are dealing with Shapeways not the designer, and the designer gets in effect a commission on the sale.

I have noticed  postage is costing more, but then look at any international post, apart from that from China, and it has been getting more expensive over past few years.

 

Good to hear from you Simon. Following you personal message advice, I bought two KESR Ford Railcards and the Royal Saloon, which I received on Monday, and they are actually much better than the images on the Shapeways site suggests, The only problem that I have noticed is the fittings for the wheel axles. On the Railcars the holes are minute and opening them out will leave very little material to support a 2mm axle, so some form of reinforcement will be neccessary, and on the Victorian Saloon the axle boxes are too far apart to accomodate a standard 2mm pinpoint axle, even opening out the holes and fitting pinpoint bearings does not resolve the problem. Some packing behind the bearing flanges to reduce the space between the axle boxes will hopefully work, but perhaps a tweak to the design would relieve these issues in the future.

 

I was considering motorizing one of the railcars, and the frames appear to be able to accomodate a Branchlines Mashima motor and gearbox, but it will require quite a bit of the supporting chassis framework to be removed, so I may well be resorting to motorizing a small scratchbuilt baggage wagon to run between the railcars.

 

 

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The question of axle boxes comes up quite often, My suggested way is to use an internal support/bearing for the axle, and not worry about fitting axles heds into axle boxes. If a complete dummy chassis is put together it can be removed easier from body, and can be tested separately, even non powered wagons and coaches.

 

For motorized chassis I suggest contacting Mark at Locos n Stuff, as he has done his own 3D printed working chassis for some of my models.

Edited by rue_d_etropal
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17 hours ago, Ian Morgan said:

I believe VAT, duty, etc is still hit and miss at the moment

 

It always was when importing from outside the EU.

 

Nothing has changed due to Brexit, apart from the rules that they don't stick to :)

 

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20 hours ago, rue_d_etropal said:

The question of axle boxes comes up quite often, My suggested way is to use an internal support/bearing for the axle, and not worry about fitting axles heds into axle boxes. If a complete dummy chassis is put together it can be removed easier from body, and can be tested separately, even non powered wagons and coaches.

 

For motorized chassis I suggest contacting Mark at Locos n Stuff, as he has done his own 3D printed working chassis for some of my models.

 

I certainly considered making a separate chassis for the Royal Saloon, but thought I would try pinpoint bearings first, which I prefer. In order to compenstate for the wider axle box distance, I have made up four 0.5mm thick plastic washers and fitted them onto the flanged pinpoint bearings, and pressed them home into the opened out holes, they work perfectly. The bearings are quite a tight fit, but I may add a small drop of superglue, just to secure them.

 

I have still to decide what to do with the railcars, I have looked at Locos n Stuff, but could not see anything suitable on his web site. Looking at some of his chassis, they are not dissimilar to those I make for locos, so I may have a go at making one up from brass strip, but without the bother of aligning holes for several axles, and securing to the existing chassis framework. The main issue will be pickups on such a small model.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Crosland said:

 

It always was when importing from outside the EU.

 

Nothing has changed due to Brexit, apart from the rules that they don't stick to :)

 

 

Yes we have had problems in the past with items from the US, but it is usually because the sender has used inacurate description or over valued the item.  We reguarly send stuff to Australia, and have learnt how to provide a description which satisfies Australian Customs.

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8 hours ago, David Schweizer said:

 

 

 

I have still to decide what to do with the railcars, I have looked at Locos n Stuff, but could not see anything suitable on his web site.

 

 

David , just contact Mark, and he should be able to  do a bespoke chassis. He might want the actual body sending to him. Something like this railcar might have even more interest if it is known there is a chassis available.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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I had an order delivered earlier this week.

 

My order was £237.07 and the charges to UPS were £58.96.

 

However a few weeks ago I took delivery of an HO scale Australian loco with sound which slipped through and was delivered without the usual letter from Parcelforce!

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my impression is that charge should only be the VAT(20%) plus admin charge, which I personnally think should be scrapped, even if in the end it means VAT being put up slightly. Admin charges are a licence to print money, as they seem to vary a lot. Governments should pay 'tax collectors; , not the person receiving the item.

I tend to try and keep my orders, such as they are,under the £135 limit.

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I've received an order in Jan/Feb with no charges but another arrived today with a £45.68 import VAT charge and £11.50 "brokerage charges" £11.50 by UPS for delivering the bill along with the items. At least if we could pay the VAT when ordering it would save the additional £11.50 just for collecting the tax. It also seems bizarre that Shapeways is a New York based company trading in US Dollars but the VAT is charged this way to British customers because the order was printed and shipped from the Netherlands. 
Investing in a larger printer of my own shortly so will make fewer Shapeways orders for myself but still sell a lot of my designs through them and this sort of extra hidden charge will put a lot of customers off, at least from ordering a second time.

 

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The UPS invoice was clearly showing the charge as "Import VAT" £45.68 plus the "Brokerage Charge" of £11.50. There was a separate line for "Duties" which was blank. However, looking again at my Shapeways order it does say "VAT (0% Distance Selling Regulation) €0.00" and it does clearly state the order would be manufactured in the Netherlands, so I suppose I should have been aware of this. Total order value was Euro 246 and the annoying bit, apart from the UPS charge, is that I was taking advantage of their free shipping offer so could have split the order in two, kept each below £135 value and probably avoided any charge at this end... Will be wiser next time.

UPS_invoice_30Apr2021_IMG-4428.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

I cannot see Shapeways starting a British operation, and many designers do not want the hassle of arranging printing in the UK and then packing and sending the prints out to buyers. Although I have made most of my print files available for people to print at home or through a UK printing house, for most designers who have committed thousands of hours to designing a range of products, selling a print file and losing control of it, is not an attractive proposition when they can monetise the design work through Shapeways. My designs were never intended to make money for me, and being in a very niche market, I have been happy to give mine away to people who want the models.  https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/155813-free-stl-files-for-sncf-corail-including-b6dux-bodies-1160/

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