What this covers
This policy covers the files you send the shop: the 3D model you upload — an .stl, a STEP or IGES export (.step, .stp, .iges, .igs), or a .zip holding the model and anything that goes with it — and the reference photographs, sketches, and PDF drawings attached to a request when there is no model yet. It applies whether the file arrived with a signed-in account or through the public estimate form.
It sits alongside the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy and does not replace either. Nothing here changes who owns your model: your files stay yours, and holding a copy gives us no right to print it for anyone else, publish it, sell it, or use it for anything beyond your own work.
We keep a copy of what you submit
When you submit a file it may be retained in our database and file storage after the job it came in for is finished. That is deliberate, and it is for your benefit: the most common thing a customer asks for is the part they already had made.
Because we still hold the file, that second run is simple:
- A reprint — ask for the same part again and we print from the file already on record. Nothing to re-upload, no hunting for the original on a drive you no longer own, no risk of sending a different revision by mistake.
- A revision — a change to a part we have made before starts from the file we printed, not from scratch, which is faster and cheaper to quote.
- A warranty or accuracy question — if a part comes back wrong, we can compare it against the exact file it was made from rather than taking either side's word for it.
Stored with the file is the ordinary record of the job it belongs to: the file name, the material, quantity, and print settings used, and the request it was attached to. That is what lets us find the right file later when you ask for “the bracket from last spring”.
How long we keep it
Files are kept while your account is open and the part remains something you might reasonably ask for again. We do not set a fixed expiry, because a customer coming back for a replacement part three years later is normal work for this shop rather than an edge case.
A file is removed sooner in any of these cases: you ask us to delete it (section 04); you close your account, which removes the files attached to it; or the shop retires storage that is no longer needed for any live or foreseeable job.
A file sent through the public estimate form is also removed at once if the owner of the email address given with it tells us, through the link in the email we send that address, that they did not send it. The request and every file uploaded with it are deleted there and then — unless the shop has already started work on it, in which case a person looks at it first.
A larger file is sent from your browser straight to our file storage and waits in a holding area until you submit the form. If you never submit it — you close the tab, or change your mind — it is deleted automatically, within about a day. It is never attached to a request, and nobody but the shop can reach it, while it waits.
The order record itself — dates, quantities, the invoice number, and the amount — is kept for our accounting and warranty obligations even after a file is deleted, as described in section 07 of the Privacy Policy. Deleting a model does not erase the fact that an order happened.
Deleting a file, on request
Any specific file can be deleted on request. Email info@takomoco.com and tell us which one, and we will remove it.
It helps us if you send the request from the email address on your account and name the file or the request it belongs to — the file name, the part name, or the order it was printed for is plenty. If you would rather we cleared everything, say so and we will delete every model file we hold for you.
We will action the request and confirm it by reply, normally within a few days and in any case within the 45 days stated in the Privacy Policy. There is no charge, you do not have to give a reason, and asking will never affect how your work is handled or priced.
Two honest limits. A file still needed for a job in production cannot be deleted mid-run — we will finish or cancel the part first, your choice. And routine backups cycle out on their own schedule, so a deleted file may persist in a backup for a short period afterwards; it is not restored to live storage and is not used for anything.
After a deletion, a later reprint of that part means uploading the file again. That is the trade, and it is yours to make.
How the files are held
Uploaded files live in access-controlled object storage, not on a public address. A download link is served only to the account that owns the file, or to the shop. Other customers cannot reach your models, and we do not publish, share, or sell them.
Inside the shop, access is limited to the people running the job. We use your file to price, repair, slice, print, and inspect your part, and to do the reprints and revisions described in section 02 — nothing else. We do not use customer models to train anything or to make parts for other people.
Your agreement
Agreeing to this policy is required to open an account: the sign-up form asks you to tick a box confirming you accept it, and an account cannot be created without that. Submitting a file through the public estimate form accepts it too.
You warrant, as under section 05 of the Terms of Service, that you have the right to send us each file you upload and to have the part reproduced. If you hold someone else's model under an agreement that forbids a third party keeping a copy, do not upload it — or upload it and then ask us to delete it once the job is done, which is exactly what section 04 is for.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy; the date at the top of the page shows when it last changed, and a material change will be announced on the site before it takes effect. Questions about it go to info@takomoco.com. This version is dated October 5, 2026.