Casting service/cast on demand

[Lex]

Next I want to find some one who can cast up some of the better pieces so I won't have to sculpt all of them...

we have been tinkering with the idea of setting up some kind of casting & distribution service, based upon pre-registration and payment in advance. I can split of a thread to discuss this ??

[BlackEd]

Please Do! 

I have a contact (rather old) here in the US.  I will give him a call to see if he is interested in an arrangement.

Also, my wife has her own business that involves casting metal, but those casters are very expensive  for making molds.  I remember it was $600 USD about 12 years ago to get a mold made up.  A bit more than what I want to pay for a handfull of 10 mm figs.  And most of the casters I know through those sources won't cast anything in lead or lead alloy due to US laws.  This drives up the cost of metal, as China has been consuming a large portion of the world's tin since 2003. (for the curious, check out www.curiouscharacters.com).

Thanks Lex!

[jchaos79]

Next I want to find some one who can cast up some of the better pieces so I won't have to sculpt all of them...

we have been tinkering with the idea of setting up some kind of casting & distribution service, based upon pre-registration and payment in advance. I can split of a thread to discuss this ??

I think it is a good idea. I will be in if you make something like that

[azrael71]

Next I want to find some one who can cast up some of the better pieces so I won't have to sculpt all of them...

we have been tinkering with the idea of setting up some kind of casting & distribution service, based upon pre-registration and payment in advance. I can split of a thread to discuss this ??

You know I am in

[Lex]

We kinda did discuss this before, but never to the extend of reaching any level of consensus.

1) is anyone equiped to cast 10 mil figures from greens?
2) does anyone have contacts with someone that would be willing to cast 10 mil from greens
3) whom do we have that could/would provide greens

and if we resolve the above

4) can we set-up a website and proces/procedure to allow people to "sign-in" on certain figures, or maybe even request certain figures, with the intention to produce a casting run once a certain pre-set number of orders is passed.

Discuss please

[Meister.Petz]

I dont know if it was ever mentioned before but the director of our local Tin-miniatures-museum has also casting experience. Last time he told me "... blablabla ... just casted some figures". These word caught my attention. The only problem is, that his casted miniatures are almost 2 dimensional (you may remember those veeeeery old tin-miniatures). Maybe Gerald could ask him if he would do sth like that.

Gerald!! Gerald!! Gerald!! Gerald!! ... (echoes)

Just my 2c.
Greetings,
Peter

[jchaos79]

I am familiar in develping alloys in furnaces, but never cast "shapes". As far as I know the expensive equiptment is the centrifugate machine.

Do you consider the possibility of asking to a manufacture like "irregular miniatures"? they are a familiar firma, have the equiptment, have experience in 10mm casting, cast only what the people buy, and almost every week they add some figures to their catalogue, so I think they should have enough hability to increase his catalogue. So get in touch with them (or any other manofactures) with the following approach:

 "here is the product. You do not have to sculpt. The product fit in a specific wargame list (warmaster). Use your experience making the moulds. Include it in your catalogue and when you have enough buyers to cast a load do it. The benefits are yours."  (the bad thing is that we sould wait to have enough orders that the firma get benefits in those references... but I can wait, better than never have warmaster figures)

Maybe I could make some calls or email asking advice to the spanish manufactures to know what is the better aproach. Can also talk personally with the editors of a spanish paper call "wargames soldados y estrategia" to ask them for an idea to obtein the 1-3 Lex¡s goals.

Just are ideas... tell me if you think some idea could work

[Carrington]

I would suggest postiong these questions on the Taccoms forums -- I know there are a fair number of folks doing castings... not least thedespot29, who has started a line of 6mm fantasy figures.

I'm not sure whether 10mm casting is all that different from 6mm....

[DaveC]

Have a look here Lex

Themouldmaker.com

http://cart.themouldmaker.com/index.php?p=home

These are the people I was looking at to possibly produce some Ogres.

They are well recommend and used by a lot of the independent miniature companys

You first need a master mould to turn 1 green into several masters

Mastermould £65 then £2.95 per master cast.

Then the masters are used to make a production mould

Production moulds:  

9"    : £46.50 each
11"   : £54.50 each

Production casting (prices are per kilo):  
White metal (60%Pb - 40%Sn)  Â£12.80
Lead free pewter £21.20

You'd get a lot of 10mm figures in those moulds.

While I have plenty of experience at home gravity casting you really need someone with a centrifuge to get the best results especially given how small some of the details are and if it's outsourced to a professional specialist company you know it will get done right.

I just remembered that Eureka will also sculpt and cast miniatures 10mm scale it comes under the 400 club (not listed its special request) so they would need orders for 800 of each figure from 10 different people. This is how the current 10mm stuff was done I think 1 person, can't remember who, paid for most of the stuff to be produced themselves.

[Lex]

Thanks for that info, it helps

Eureka was Doc Eisenstein mostly IIRC, the downside of using Eureka is their location down under.

"Placing"  the ranges with an existing company might be an option, but will mean we wont have much control, which may, or may not be a good thing

Lex

[jchaos79]

Hi,

In my opinion the mouldmaker, is very interesting. I do not see particulary expensive.

Just an idea (could not be the best one but other "to the vault"):
Maybe a space in warmuster could be destinted to make a "money contribution" for the people interested and when there are enough money go to mouldmaker and take some figures. Even could be distributed/selled via ebay to increase the "money poll" to make more figures.

I do not have idea of GW copyright problems with this inicaitive.

[MrMarkRelf]

I would be interested in an ogre kingdoms army, i am sure someone posted pictures a while ago.

Get the numbers worked out and it is a simple BEQ (break even quantity) calculation.

Consider what people think is a reasonable price to pay for unit then work it from there

[Stomm]

I've bookmarked that site, very useful indeed. One of the things I've been thinking of doing has been to sculpt and sell a line of 10mm figures, most likely Ancients. At about £200 to get a couple of units into production casting that really isn't too bad. I'd just need to figure out whether to drop-cast the dollies, etc... or try making a large enough batch to justify a master mould.

This might be my project for next year instead of getting a PT job...

[jchaos79]

go on stomm, which range are you thinking of?

[Stomm]

That would be telling now wouldn't it?