"Hiring someone to cast" Topic

Hi all,
I have a project that I'm in the very early, "let's see if the numbers work" stages of. I was wondering how much it would cost to do the following:

1) Have a mold made from about 20-30 small masters (about the volume of a 6mm figure, if not less). Alternatively, have 20-30 copies made from 5 or so masters, and then put into a mold (to keep down costs, of course!). These are very simple pieces; my 3D guy is telling me that casting them won't be an issue.

2) Pay someone to cast the figures. From what Ive been reading online you can get someone to spin out 100-1000 pieces per hour, depending on the size. I would imagine this would be nearer to 1000. I would only need a few thousand made up initially. I'm not sure if I'll be making the product to produce long-term, or if I would just use them myself. If I did make them available I would definitely license it to someone else to sell for me.

Hi, Stephen Thomas from 19th Century Miniatures here, we do contract mold making and casting. If the material your masters are in is a resin or plastic, a master mold will be around $70 USD-80 per, depending on the conplexity of the parts. If you can send me some pics for what you want cast, I can give you a better idea on costs. Production molds will run $30 USD-40, again depending on the complexity. fordgtmkiv@yahoo.com