It seems that they already do have items made that I'd be looking for. Problem is, I try to search their site and it's a mess.

Right now, I'm trying to get double-buckle boots as used by US troops in late WW2. I don't know if they already exist or I can have them made by somebody.

There are some in Mini Art's US Soldiers at Rest and US Army Drivers sets.

A few of the Dragon sets had some as well, but I'd have to dig them out to see which ones, which I can't right now.

Shapeways catalog is certainly NOT user-friendly! Sometimes you have to browse through several hundred pages of items to see if someone makes what you're looking for.

Thanks, but I had the idea of buying the boots and tacking them onto existing figures with the old gaiters. I know some kits have the right boots but only a few.

I just can concur with that. I also have made my first order and was near desparation.

Shapeways has a lot of neat products that can cater to the scale modeler.

I usually start a search by typing in the scale: 1/16, 1-16, or 1:16 as most sellers do not create their parts and figures to any scale.

Then look at the dimensions of the print. The dimensions are for the entire print, sprues included. Make sure that you're not paying for a 1/6th figure when you want 1/16.

Then look at the print quality. "Smooth Fine" and "Smoothest Fine" prints are the best quality (translucent) compared to the solid color plastic prints (white, red, black, blue, etc).

If in doubt, email the seller and ask what scale he made the print in.

Shapeways prints do exhibit subtle textured print lines and they're very brittle. Even dropping them on a carpet will shatter the print along the printed lines, so spend wisely. My opinion is not to spend too much on Shapeways prints, but you can indeed find some neat stuff on Shapeways that no resin or plastic kit maker makes.

I've ordered several times from Shapeways and been very pleased with the products. I don't think some of those items would be possible in white metal, resin or maybe even styrene, at least with detail that fine, so I've been willing to pay often high prices in exchange for quality.

However, as you say, finding what you want on their website is problematic. You need to be creative with search terms and try multiple variations before assuming that something doesn't exist. In some cases the only way I found items was by specifying the scale, for some reason that brought up results that hadn't appeared before.