Don't you just have the same issue but with shady ali express sellers now?

No. 1) AliExpress sellers control their own store listing and have their own reviews. This is leagues ahead of Amazon. 2) I only buy products from AliExpress where safety and quality aren’t of any concern. 3) I have never actually had a "shady seller" experience on AliExpress.

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Freak_NL 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Even quality can be fine on AliExpress for all sorts of parts and even custom work. Small screws in a specific size, wood routing bits, drill bits, magnets, crafting stuff…

I had a cutting die for leather made there in a shape specified by me, and the process, while clunky with their spammy message box, was pretty much as pleasant as you could expect, and the workmanship excellent.

Just don't buy clothing or end-user electronics there. For makers, crafters, and tinkerers AliExpress is a great resource while it lasts¹.

1: The US obviously has its tariffs thing going on. The EU is considering a fixed €2 surcharge for packages from China.

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fnordian_slip 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I know that's extremely off -topic, but could you please tell me the name of the shop? I'm currently getting into leather stamping, and the quality of dies has been rather hit or miss, so I was to cautious to buy a custom one until now.

	▲	Freak_NL an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Not at all, I ordered at the LiSaDuPu Store (https://www.aliexpress.com/store/912251155). I had a 60 mm outline of a water lily leaf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeblatt) made, and the die seems alright. I've done around twenty of those now in 7-8 oz leather, so no idea about its longevity, but it's cheap enough to warrant experimenting. The die itself accurately reproduces the PNG I sent in the chat to the store. To use the die I'm using a one ton arbor press. That's not enough force to push a die of that size through in one go, but after the first press I can move the die and the leather around the outline and finish the cutting with a few light presses all around.

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sixothree an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm surprised just how much luck I've had with AliExpress. Packages arrive quickly and as described.