"Advisement Request for Start-Up Minis Venture" Topic

I tried to search for this info by searching for start-up and starting but I can't find any threads with this info.

I have my first green. I am saving up for a spincaster, vulcanizer and furnace. What steps should I take now? Should I wait unitl I have the equipment to get my green produced? How far fetched would it be to pay for my first production mold from an established source but ask that I be allowed to visit their shop to learn from making my own?
Any assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all that reply.

I would suggest getting it contract casted, if you think it is good enough that people will pay money for it.

You can post a pic of your miniature here, for opinions as to the green's marketability. If the sculpt is good, people will want to order it, and some companies will probably step forward to offer casting assistance to you.

You can sell them through the contract casting company for a percentage, and/or independently on eBay, or your own website.

That should help you to start earning some revenue, to help pay for your venture.

Contact several companies, and see who will give you the best deal.

I doubt too many companies will be keen on giving more than just general advice to a possible competitor. You can always ask though, since I may be wrong on that.

Manufacturers of the equipment will be more likely to provide good advice to you, since they have an incentive to get you to purchase their equipment.

Check out the Casting Yahoo Group, for more help and assistance. There are others there as well, for mold making, etc. Still waiting to get added to that one.

You can also peruse the scuplting, molding, and manufacturing message archives here on TMP for additional info.

Good luck on your venture.

I'd start with contract casting.

As someone who built all of his own equipment (caster and vulcanizer)and then taught myself how to make, gate and cast molds, I can assure you that you won't learn by just watching someone that knows what they are doing once. It would be an awful lot of time 'apprenticing' with them. Most shops are probably not going to be up for that.
There's a lot of voodoo and feel in gating molds.
I encourage you to get your own stuff and learn, but in the mean time have someone else casting your figures as you'll be spending all your time learning the mechanics of doing it yourself.
One thing I did early on is that I got another professional mold maker to make a production mold for me and I looked at what he had done and figured out why. Helped a lot.

Check out the following link, for equipment:

tekcast.com

Not sure if anyone has done this, but I would think you could also try using a potter's wheel, or other similar rotating device to start with, if desired, to keep costs low.

I imagine it will certainly not be as good as a commercial model, but should be better than just drop casting.

I'm still trying to get my company up to speed, so feel free to PM me with questions and yes I can point you to a mold maker/caster as well…

Thanks for all the info.

I purchased equipment from tekcast which came with 2 days of training. I picked up how to do an adequate job moldmaking and casting pretty quickly (eliciting praise from Sandy Garrity), but am certainly no master.

However, I don't think that the metal miniatures market is thriving enough to justify the purchase of your own system instead of getting it contract casted.

I am musing about the possibility of selling my system if you are serious about getting one--PM me.