Searching Shapeways...

[The Bigbee Line]

Good morning

 

I've tried searching on the Shapeways web site for reasonably priced 7mm wagon buffers, without heads, just the body.  I cannot seem to find a search that doesn't include lots of non relevant items.

 

Some clues on searching would be appreciated,

 

Thanks

 

Ernie

[daifly]

Somewhat oddly, this site increases the number of hits when you try to be specific. So entering "7mm wagon buffers" hits around 1749 products. "Wagon buffers" reduces this to 1613 and 'buffers" only 170 products - a manageable number. Clearly each search term is additive rather than filtering.

Dave

[Osgood]

It is a totally unfathomable search function - they must lose loads of potential business (I know that, 'cos I've given up on many occasions when the right hit would have resulted in a sale).

 

I feel compelled to complain but have another equal feeling that it would be an utter waste of time.

 

I acknowledge Dave's point above , but you're lucky 'buffer' knocks it down so much.

Take for example a need for 1/43 scale truck wheels / tyres - the simplest one word search yields 3232 - see results below:

 

 

1/43 truck wheel     10,000   

Truck wheel             8806

Wheel                      3232

Tyre                         161 which does not include many valid wheel and tyre assemblies found in the 'wheel' search.

 

I've searched using the common "American" technique of word '+' word, and various other combinations of parentheses but that doesn't help.

I suspect there might be a way of filtering results using multiple words but cannot find the right way to do it.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Osgood

[hartleymartin]

It is a bit hit-and-miss. Some manufacturers try attaching various useful takes such as "7mm" "1:43" "1/43" "O gauge" to try and help, but Shapeways search system is completely pathetic.

The best approach I have found so far is to try several search terms, and then look at various sellers stores for products similar to what you want.

 

It took me a long time to find the Millwall Manning Wardle 7mm kit - and I only found it because I was trawling through results for "Manning Wardle"

[66C]

Hi Ernie

 

If you are looking for just the buffer bodies, have you considered approaching suppliers such as Invertrain or Northants and asking if they will supply castings only?

 

This may be considerably cheaper than Shapeways products.

 

Regards.

[Talltim]

Is it worth using Google to search Shapeways?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=NvCmWaLhIur06ASuqavwCA&q=site%3Ashapeways.com+7mm+wagon+buffer&oq=site%3Ashapeways.com+7mm+wagon+buffer&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3...27858.29222.0.29497.6.6.0.0.0.0.217.969.0j5j1.6.0....0...1.1.64.mobile-gws-serp..1.0.0.xE1_Gl57LIA

In the Google search box enter

:shapeways.com 7mm wagon buffer

That way you can use all the Boolean

Search features.

[Quarryscapes]

Regardless of search terms, you'll probably end up finding that Shapeways, 7mm and reasonably priced don't go together! If you let me know what buffers exactly you're after I may be able to draw some up for you.

[Guy Rixon]

Shapeways has two search-like systems that work independently.

 

The free-text search box matches words in the box with an implicit OR between them. E.g. "buffer" finds products tagged "buffer", "wagon buffer" finds anything tagged "wagon" or "buffer", but does not require both words to be present. Add more terms and you never reduce the number of hits.

 

The category system divides products by scale, era, nationality (of subject, not of designer) and into type bins steam loco/electric loco/coach/wagon etc. Selecting by this system will reduce the number of hits, but it depends on the designers putting their products into the categories. Many do not.

 

What buffers do you need and what do you consider a fair price? I would be happy to rescale any in my range, and I could very quickly get you a price estimate. I would need some advice on what bore is needed in the buffer guides for 7mm.

 

PS: after positing this, I tried the free-text search with explicit "and" between the terms. This works! Type into the box, e.g., "wagon and buffer and LNWR" and you get a sensible reduction in hits w.r.t "buffer". But it still depends on the designers tagging consistently.

Edited August 31, 2017 by Guy Rixon

[Osgood]

A good example - I tried searching for aec and 1:43.

 

Here are two screen saves - the one with 57 hits I cannot now repeat, but I got it on the first attempt.

Note also the flat truck body in the 57 hit screen - the title clearly shows both aec and 1:43 yet it does not show up in the search giving 3 results.

 

What a totally random facility.  Amazing to think we managed to land some blokes on the moon - and get them back.....

 

 

 

 

 

Edit:  Hang on a moment - note the different range for 'cost' range - now I never altered anything to do with price for these searches.  Another thing to watch for !!  

 

Edit 2:  Or more likely it is simply indicating the range of prices of the items which the search has revealed.

 

Edited August 30, 2017 by Osgood

[MarcD]

We are printing our buffers now we have added some and we will be adding more parts including buffers on our shapeways shop.  https://www.shapeways.com/shops/pre-grouping-railways

 

Marc