While you can order 3D printed objects from shapeways and other recent startups, most of them do not accept bitcoin. We are offering a 3D printing service to the bitcoin community specifically, hoping not just to toss one more hat into the
BTC economy, but to provide a genuine service that enhances the value of
BTC itself. This includes some consultation with you to make sure that we can satisfy your request with a reliable product - in this sense we are offering a service (as well as goods)
To answer what could be your first question, we are covering the shipping fees ourselves until we find a way to pay BTC directly for postage, or come up with a better system. There's no proof that the economy can handle such a service in a dedicated way, so we're doing this as a labor of love while trying to be open, honest, and not quitting the day jobs. There's a lot of excitement with both 3D printing and Bitcoin, and so we are taking the it slowly to make sure that we don't just get our faces sued into the pavement.
Main discussion here in the initial announcement thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148902.0
