Fabricate Terms of Service

Effective date: 2026-05-05 Version: 3 Jurisdiction: England and Wales

1. About Fabricate

Fabricate is an online platform that introduces people who want a 3D-printed part ("Creators") to people who own a 3D printer and are willing to print one ("Makers"). Fabricate is not a manufacturer. We do not produce, inspect, deliver, or guarantee any printed part.

Fabricate is operated by HELIXDREAMSCO LTD (Company Number 17158644) registered at 26 Watermint Quay, Craven Walk, London, N16 6DD, United Kingdom. Contact: support@helixdreams.co.

By using the platform you accept these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Acceptable Use Policy. If you do not accept them, you must not use the platform.

2. Personal, non-commercial use only

The Fabricate platform is for personal, hobbyist, and non-commercial use only.

By accepting these Terms you warrant that you are using the platform as an individual and not on behalf of any business entity, partnership, sole-trader operation, or other commercial enterprise.

You agree that you will not use Fabricate to:

• order, print, or supply parts that you intend to sell, resell, hire out, or otherwise commercialise;
• order, print, or supply parts as part of a trade, business, profession, or commercial venture of your own or anyone else's;
• fulfil orders placed with you by your own customers (i.e. using Fabricate as a hidden manufacturing supply chain).

If your needs are commercial — including small-batch resale, custom-shop fulfilment, prop-house production, or contract manufacturing — please contact support@helixdreams.co to enquire about a separate commercial arrangement. The standard platform Terms below do not cover commercial use, and any attempt to use the platform commercially without a written arrangement with Fabricate is a material breach of these Terms.

If we determine, on reasonable evidence, that an account is being used commercially in breach of this clause, we may immediately suspend or close the account, withhold pending payouts, and seek recovery of any platform fees that the breach circumvented. We will not impose pre-set "liquidated damages" — instead, we reserve the right to pursue actual losses through the courts where appropriate.

3. Eligibility and verification

You must be 18 or older and able to enter into a binding contract under the laws of England and Wales. By using the platform you confirm both.

Makers must complete identity verification through our third-party identity provider (Stripe Identity) before they can place a bid that may be accepted. Verification involves a document scan plus selfie liveness check. Verification is a fraud-reduction measure. It is not a guarantee of a Maker's competence, honesty, or printer condition.

We reserve the right to refuse, suspend, or close any account where we have a reasonable concern about identity, conduct, or compliance with these Terms.

4. The contract for a print is between Creator and Maker

When a Creator accepts a Maker's bid, a separate contract is formed directly between that Creator and that Maker for the production and handover of the printed part. Fabricate is not a party to that contract. Our role is limited to:

• presenting Maker bids to Creators,
• collecting payment from the Creator and holding it in escrow until pickup is confirmed (or deemed accepted — see clause 9),
• releasing payment to the Maker once pickup is confirmed,
• providing chat, dispute, identity-verification, and notification tooling.

Disputes about quality, fit, suitability, defects, delays, dimensional accuracy, finish, or unprinted/wasted material are between Creator and Maker. Fabricate may, at its sole discretion, mediate or refund (in whole or in part) the escrowed amount via our dispute tool, but is not obliged to. See clause 11.

5. Pickup, handover, and Maker safety duties

Pickup of printed parts happens at the Maker's location, at a time agreed between Creator and Maker. Fabricate is not present at handover.

You acknowledge that:

• you attend the pickup at your own risk;
• Fabricate provides no transport, insurance, supervision, or vetting of any pickup location;
• any injury, damage, theft, or other loss arising at or near a pickup is a matter between the parties present.

Recommendation for Makers: wherever practicable, agree a public-place handover (a café, library, or community space) rather than your home address. Public handovers reduce safety risk for both parties and limit your exposure under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 as the "occupier" of premises to which you have invited a visitor. If you do host a Creator at your home or workshop:

• you owe them the "common duty of care" under the 1957 Act — i.e. a duty to take such care as is reasonable in the circumstances to see that the visitor is reasonably safe;
• you are responsible for the condition of your premises (lighting, walkways, exposed equipment, animals, hazards);
• this is your private liability, not Fabricate's.

We strongly recommend that Makers who host visitors regularly review their household contents / public liability insurance position. Fabricate does not provide and does not procure insurance for Makers.

Nothing in this clause excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by Fabricate's own negligence, or any other liability that cannot be excluded under English law (see clause 14).

6. Files, intellectual property, and Maker file hygiene

You retain ownership of the files (CAD, STL, 3MF, OBJ, STEP, images) you upload.

By uploading, you grant Fabricate a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, terminable licence to store, process, and display your file solely for the purpose of operating the platform — running quotes, sharing the file with the assigned Maker, and producing the test-strip stencil.

By accepting a bid, you (the Creator) grant the assigned Maker a limited, single-purpose licence to print exactly the quantity of physical copies stated on the accepted bid of the file you supplied — and no other use. The Maker is expressly not licensed to:

• retain, archive, redistribute, modify, derive from, slice for resale, sell, or share the file or any of its derivatives;
• print additional copies for themselves or any third party;
• use the file or any rendering of it for marketing or commercial purposes.

File-hygiene requirement for Makers: the Maker must delete all copies of the Creator's file (including the original upload and any sliced or derivative artefacts produced from it) within 24 hours of confirmed pickup, or within 14 days of the "Ready for pickup" notification, whichever is sooner, except where retention is strictly required to honour an open dispute, refund, or legal hold. Continued retention beyond that period is a material breach of these Terms and may give rise to a separate claim by the Creator.

You confirm that you (Creator) own or have a sufficient licence to use any file you upload. Do not upload anything that infringes copyright, trademark, registered or unregistered design rights, or other third-party rights. Fabricate is not responsible for the content of user-uploaded files and may remove any file that, in our reasonable view, infringes rights, breaches the Acceptable Use Policy, or risks legal exposure to Fabricate or other users.

To the extent permitted by law, Fabricate is not liable for: loss of files in transit, accidental disclosure of files to a Maker who fails to delete them after a job, or any third-party copying of files outside our control. Where a Maker breaches the file-hygiene requirement, the Creator may pursue them directly.

7. Acceptable Use and prohibited items

The full prohibition list lives in our Acceptable Use Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. The list below is not exhaustive.

You must not use the platform — and must not upload, transfer, share, request, or print any digital file or physical part — that involves:

(a) Weapons, weapon components, and restricted digital templates. This includes, but is not limited to:

• firearms, firearm components, ammunition components, suppressors, magazines, receivers, conversion devices, "ghost gun" frames, or any 3D-printable firearm template or partial firearm template;
• restricted offensive weapons under the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 (zombie knives, knuckledusters, telescopic truncheons, etc.) and any later amendments;
• explosive devices, pyrotechnics, or their components.

You acknowledge that the possession, supply, manufacture, import, or transfer of digital templates for restricted firearm components is a criminal offence in England and Wales under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, the Firearms Act 1968, and other firearms legislation. Breach of this clause will result in:

• immediate and permanent account closure without notice;
• forfeiture of any pending payouts and platform balances held on your account;
• retention of uploaded files, chat transcripts, identity verification data, and pickup metadata as evidence;
• referral to the National Crime Agency and any other relevant law-enforcement body.

You consent to the disclosures above as a condition of using the platform.

(b) Items that require regulatory approval we cannot verify. Including but not limited to:

• Personal protective equipment (PPE) — helmets, harnesses, fall protection, eye protection, respirators or filter components, gloves rated for chemical / cut / fire protection. PPE supplied to consumers must comply with the Personal Protective Equipment (Enforcement) Regulations 2018 and carry UKCA / CE marking. Fabricate cannot verify either.
• Medical devices — anything intended for diagnosis, treatment, prevention, or alleviation of disease or injury, including dental aligners, prosthetic or orthotic components, surgical guides, anatomical training models for clinical use, syringes, inhaler parts. These fall under the Medical Devices Regulations 2002 (as amended) and require MHRA registration we cannot verify.
• Structural or safety-critical vehicle parts — anything bearing load on a road-going vehicle (suspension, steering, braking, seat-mounting, restraint anchors, structural body components). These are subject to UK Type Approval and Construction & Use regulations, and 3D-printed parts will almost never meet the relevant standards.
• Aviation, marine, or aerospace structural parts — load-bearing or safety-critical components for aircraft, drones over 250 g intended for any non-recreational purpose, or marine vessels.
• Children's toys intended for sale or distribution — these require compliance with the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011.
• Food-contact items — utensils, cookware, food storage. Requires compliance with the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012.
• Pressure vessels, gas-bearing components, or any item designed to contain a flammable or hazardous substance under pressure.
• Drug paraphernalia, lock-picking and security-defeat tools, counterfeit goods, trademark-infringing parts, or any sexual content involving minors.

(c) Personal and decorative items printed for your own use (cosplay armour, costume helmets, replica props clearly marked and not safety-rated, decorative figurines, hobby brackets, personal-use replacement parts, board-game accessories, etc.) are explicitly permitted, provided they are not sold or supplied to third parties.

If you are unsure whether your part falls in or out of the above, contact us at support@helixdreams.co before posting it.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these rules without refund, and report serious breaches (including any involving restricted firearm digital templates) to law enforcement where required by law.

8. Bespoke goods, "as-described" disputes, and your cancellation rights

Each printed part is made-to-order to the Creator's exact specifications and clearly personalised — produced from the Creator's own digital file, in the Creator's chosen material, colour, infill, layer height, and quantity. The Maker is following the Creator's instructions; the Maker is not the designer of the part and does not warrant that the underlying design is fit for any particular purpose.

You acknowledge that under regulation 28(1)(b) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, the statutory 14-day right to cancel does not apply once the Maker has begun production, because the goods being supplied are bespoke, made-to-order, or clearly personalised.

You further acknowledge — and this is relevant to any payment-card chargeback dispute under reasons such as "Item Not as Described" — that:

• the part has been printed to the dimensions, geometry, infill, and material the Creator specified when they accepted the bid;
• "fit for purpose" warranties cannot reasonably be expected of a hobbyist Maker fulfilling a Creator-supplied design that the Maker did not engineer;
• a part that prints to the supplied file's geometry to within ordinary FFF/FDM 3D-printing tolerances is not "Not as Described" merely because it doesn't suit the Creator's intended end-use.

You may cancel a job at no charge while the job status is "Open" (no bid accepted). Once a bid is accepted and printing has started, cancellation is at the Maker's discretion and may be subject to a deduction for filament and machine time already consumed, which Fabricate will assess via the dispute tool if the parties cannot agree.

By posting a job and accepting a Maker's bid, you expressly request that the Maker begin production before the end of any cancellation period that might otherwise apply, and you accept that this waives your statutory cancellation rights from that point onward.

9. Payments, escrow, deemed acceptance, and refunds

Payments are processed by Stripe Payments Europe Ltd, the regulated payment service for transactions on Fabricate. Fabricate provides escrow as a service through Stripe Connect; the regulated payment activity is Stripe's.

The Creator pays the bid amount plus the platform fee at the point of bid acceptance. The Maker is paid out — i.e. funds are released from Fabricate's platform balance to the Maker's Stripe Connect balance — when any one of the following occurs:

• the Creator confirms pickup via the in-app pickup-code / QR mechanism; OR
• fourteen (14) days have elapsed since the Maker marked the job "Ready for pickup", and no dispute has been opened (the "Deemed Acceptance" rule).

Why deemed acceptance exists: without it, a Creator who simply doesn't show up or doesn't tap "confirm" can leave the Maker's payout in indefinite limbo. Fourteen days gives every reasonable Creator time to collect the part or raise a concern, while preventing ghosting from working as a free-money exploit against the Maker.

To stop deemed acceptance, the Creator must open a dispute via the in-app dispute tool within the 14-day window. Disputes opened after the window may still be reviewed by Fabricate at our discretion but the Maker's payout will not be automatically clawed back.

Refunds (full or partial) may be issued by Fabricate at our discretion, typically following a dispute. Where Fabricate issues a refund, the Maker's payout is reduced by the refunded amount. If the refund is issued after a payout has been transferred to the Maker, Fabricate may seek recovery from the Maker's Stripe balance via Stripe's reversal mechanism.

Fabricate is not liable for delayed Stripe transfers, bank fees, currency conversion, or refund processing times outside our control.

The platform fee is non-refundable except where required by law or where Fabricate, in its sole discretion, agrees otherwise.

10. Disputes between users

Either party may file a dispute via the in-app dispute tool within 14 days of "Ready for pickup". Fabricate reviews disputes and may resolve them in favour of either party, with or without a refund. We may request photographs, the test-strip stencil, the original file, and any chat transcripts as evidence.

Fabricate's decision is final between the platform and the parties for the purposes of releasing or withholding escrowed funds. A party who disagrees with the outcome retains any rights they may have against the other party directly under their print contract.

If the dispute concerns whether the printed part meets the specification, we will (in most cases) treat the test-strip stencil — produced by the Maker alongside the part using the order's unique stencil code — as the strongest available evidence that the printer in question was operating to specification.

11. Limitation of liability — please read this carefully

⚠️ CONSPICUOUS NOTICE — LIABILITY CAP

SUBJECT TO CLAUSE 14 (THINGS WE CANNOT EXCLUDE), FABRICATE'S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE PLATFORM — WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF STATUTORY DUTY, MISREPRESENTATION, OR OTHERWISE — IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF:

(a) £100; OR (b) THE TOTAL AMOUNT THE CREATOR ACTUALLY PAID THROUGH THE PLATFORM FOR THE TRANSACTION GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

THIS CAP APPLIES PER USER, PER TRANSACTION, AND ACROSS ALL RELATED CLAIMS, AND IS A CORE PART OF THE BARGAIN BETWEEN YOU AND FABRICATE.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Fabricate is not liable for:

• the act or omission of any Maker or Creator (including negligence, fraud, or breach of contract by them);
• defects, delays, or failures in any printed part;
• any damage, injury, or loss arising at, before, or after pickup — see clause 5;
• loss of business, profit, opportunity, goodwill, anticipated savings, or data;
• any indirect or consequential loss;
• breach by Stripe, Resend, or any other third-party processor we rely on, except to the extent caused by our own negligence.

12. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Fabricate (and its officers, employees, contractors) against any third-party claim, demand, action, loss, liability, cost, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:

• your breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy;
• content you upload (including any infringement of third-party rights);
• your interactions with other users on the platform;
• your use of any printed part outside the platform;
• your use of the platform for any commercial purpose in breach of clause 2.

13. Data protection and minimisation

We process personal data in accordance with our Privacy Policy, the UK General Data Protection Regulation, and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Pickup-address minimisation rule. The Maker's pickup address is shared with the assigned Creator solely for the purpose of attending the pickup. The Creator must not:

• retain, save, or store the Maker's address after pickup is confirmed (or 14 days have passed without dispute);
• share the address with any third party;
• use the address for any purpose other than the pickup itself.

The same rule applies in reverse to any Creator personal data the Maker handles (name, contact details, optional shipping postcode). Both parties acknowledge that under Article 5(1)(c) of the UK GDPR ("data minimisation"), they hold the other party's data only for the limited purpose of completing the transaction and must dispose of it once that purpose is fulfilled.

Breach of this clause is both a breach of these Terms and a possible breach of UK GDPR; Fabricate may suspend or close accounts that use pickup data for harassment, marketing, or any unauthorised purpose, and may pass relevant evidence to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) where appropriate.

For data-protection queries, subject-access requests, or complaints, contact privacy@helixdreams.co. You may also complain directly to the ICO at ico.org.uk.

14. Things we cannot exclude

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by Fabricate's negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation by Fabricate;
• any liability that cannot be excluded under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, the Consumer Protection Act 1987, or UK GDPR / Data Protection Act 2018;
• any consumer right that is non-waivable by law.

15. Account suspension and termination

Fabricate may suspend or close your account at any time for breach of these Terms, suspected fraud, suspected breach of the commercial-use clause, or for any other reason on reasonable notice (or, in the case of serious breach, immediately).

You may close your account at any time by emailing support@helixdreams.co. Closure does not refund platform fees already paid and does not extinguish open disputes, deemed-acceptance windows, or unpaid amounts owing to or from you.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms at any time. When we do, we'll bump the version number, post the new text at /terms, and require you to re-accept on your next visit before continuing to use the platform. Continued use after re-acceptance is your agreement to the new terms. Substantive changes will be flagged in the re-acceptance prompt.

17. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Each party submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts, except that consumers may bring proceedings in the courts of their habitual residence under retained EU consumer law.

Where a non-binding alternative dispute-resolution route is available — e.g. via a Stripe-administered chargeback or a sector-recognised ADR scheme — both parties are encouraged to attempt that route before commencing court proceedings.

18. Contact

• General queries and support: support@helixdreams.co
• Privacy / GDPR / subject access: privacy@helixdreams.co
• Disputes you can't resolve in-app: support@helixdreams.co