I could take it out of beta at any time, There are 8 of them so far and they are all in working order. I do how ever plan on having hand polished versions available for quality assurance reasons. I can't expect a shapeways employee to test out the top as well as I would, it spinning is cool but I want them to be a notch above standard. I polished a few of my own prints and they all work better after a few extra hours. So, I'll have those available in my esty shop soon. It's more work, but I believe that there are enough people with a passion for tops to make the extra effort worth it.
That being said, the more expensive metals get more attention from the shapeways crew. I didn't have to polish my Brass Tornado Top at all. On top of that, shapways has an awesome customer service team that will replace a botched print or refund your money. So I think I will start being the buffer for the printer errors, start doing some post processing (the top in this video is stainless steel polished by me which certainly make it work better), test each top myself and send them out with a little more classy packaging than the shapeways crew. I think I can provide a higher quality product with out raising the prices too far.
Also worth mentioning there is a free shipping sale this week, ends march 13. I'll be taking advantage of it to test several prototypes. I can't wait to show all of you guys what I've been doing.
