The Ship Model Forum

[quote="William Smallshaw"]James,

Thank you for the explanation and I fully appreciate the challenge in shipping flammable liquids. Those in the United States fully appreciate Richard�s efforts to provide us with your exceptional product.

That said, the part of the discussion I do not understand is why there are no provisions for surface shipment, other than full container, offered by The UK postal entity. Richard is able to ship via the US Postal Service by marking the boxes �surface transport only�. Is the international shipment of these types of items constrained to container shipment only? That seems a bit overbearing on the part of the regulators involved. But nothing surprises me when it comes to international regulatory entities. They seem to be accountable to no one but themselves.

Bill[/quote]

I am not a business but I have been buying a lot from all over the world and shipping it to Canada (where I am located).
The postal services (the "official" UPU ones)' offerings vary significantly. They also evolve. COVID didn't help either.
The USPS used to have a surface mail offering to Canada (IIRC it was a part of the USPS First Class International). They phased it out a while ago.
Some other countries' post offices still offer the surface mail (e.g. the Canada Post or the HK Post). So it depends.
It just so happened that the Colourcoats paints are based in UK and thanks to Richard we also have supply in US, but unfortunately these two countries' post offices don't offer surface mail coverage to some regions...

Hi Bill, I may have miscommunicated there. There are domestic UK services whereby I can send by road transport within the confines of the mainland island. I can also send by road to several countries within continental Europe as we have regular surface transport services between the UK and France, Belgium and the Netherlands so road links are open.

What I cannot do is access a commercial service to hand over small packages to someone and they arrange intercontinental sea transport then arrange collection and forwarding by road at the other end, so there is no "snail mail" option nowadays to send a package to North American or Australasia for example from the UK which only uses road and sea transport. There's no significant demand for such a service unfortunately. All the usual suspects dealing in international Business-To-Customer package shipping use air transport between the distribution hubs.

James,

Thank you for the explanation and I fully appreciate the challenge in shipping flammable liquids. Those in the United States fully appreciate Richard�s efforts to provide us with your exceptional product.

That said, the part of the discussion I do not understand is why there are no provisions for surface shipment, other than full container, offered by The UK postal entity. Richard is able to ship via the US Postal Service by marking the boxes �surface transport only�. Is the international shipment of these types of items constrained to container shipment only? That seems a bit overbearing on the part of the regulators involved. But nothing surprises me when it comes to international regulatory entities. They seem to be accountable to no one but themselves.

Bill

[quote="amiers"]So shipping to Australia is out too?[/quote]

The rules Richard at White Ensign Models are working to are the same as those which restrict me. They are set by IATA which all developed countries' respective aviation authorities enforce as law, and the prohibit undisclosed air transport of hazardous goods which includes flammable liquids.

This applies to all flammable model paints and most of the glues we use as modellers, but some businesses are operated by rather stupid people who choose to ignore the law for some extra sales at lower shipping costs and every time there's an incident of some sort the law tightens.

It is perfectly legal to ship model paints by air, but the cost of the paperwork to do so by a licensed agent is impracticable for individual retail sales.

Surface transport is fine, but the shipping industry works by the container load. I'm unaware of any business providing an international B2C shipping service which uses surface transport exclusively. If someone wants to arrange to send their shipping container to our address, it'll take me a while to work through the order necessary to fill it, but you're welcome to do that providing you cover my capital outlay whilst filling up your container and you deal with the import paperwork and all your taxation issues yourself. That's what major distributors do and they have a full staff to take care of that. It's not how the small businesses who stock our paints overseas operate though and therefore there's no reason for me to hold shipping containers' worth of stock just incase someone decides to start. I myself have neither the space nor money to build up and store such an inventory.

Unfortunately these restrictions are mostly caused by irresponsible businesses and ignorant individuals sending stuff in cheap unfit-for-purpose packaging which draws the wrong sort of attention by shipping companies, airlines and national and international bodies trying to make sure a badly packaged lithium battery doesn't set fire to flammable liquids unknowingly stowed next to it perhaps bringing down a Boeing 747 cargo jet into the middle of a major city next to a major mail distribution hub. Most laws and restrictions are a response to someone having demonstrated a serious problem in the first place.

So shipping to Australia is out too?

This seems like a good solution to this issue. I will recommend it to my Canadian customers.

Just PSA:
There is a logistic company that can import the hobby paints (e.g. Colourcoats) on your behalf from US to Canada.
Basically you ship your order to their US warehouse. They take care of all paperwork and transportation to Canada. Then you can either pick it up or they can ship it to you via Canada Post.
I am in GTA and a pick up option works for me. In that case, it is a very reasonable option - it costs CAD $7+HST plus any Import Taxes and Duties applicable to your order.
I have no affiliation with this company and am sharing this as PSA since there aren't many options to get the Colourcoats paints in Canada. I used it and it worked for me.
Here is the link

https://shippsy.com/

Unfortunately, I cannot. US Postal restrictions prevent it.

Hi Richard,
Do you ship those to Canada?
Tx
Val

Sovereign Hobbies has just sent me a large re-stock of Colourcoats paints including many of the USN colors that were out of stock. Sovereign Hobbies is transitioning to a new, larger 30ml tin size (previously 14ml) so some colors are available in the old, small size, some in the new larger size and a few in both sizes. Also included are brand new colors (NARN35 PB10 for RN subs!)and colors new for us at WEM (Great War aircraft colors, more Luftwaffe colors, etc.) I'll be adding them all to the website over the next few days.