Recommendation for casting service for small orders (few prints a month)

[Storen]

Can someone suggest a reliable caster (company) in US that will be interested to work with small clients. What I would like is:

- Place I could relay on long term
- Works with strict deadlines
- Willing to deal with NDAs even with small clients
- Has high quality and business ethics standards that would not depend on the size of the order (otherwise they won't be standards)

I’ll be casting very simple rings mostly in silver (sometimes gold) few times a month. I never used casting services before and I have no idea how the prices are formed.

Roughly what should I expect for the price of the casting service only (without the cost of metal or finishing operations) for 1-2 simple bands with some relief (without major undercuts, tiny prongs or anything fancy)?

[robin]

Can someone suggest a reliable caster (company) in US that will be interested to work with small clients. What I would like is:

- Place I could relay on long term
- Works with strict deadlines
- Willing to deal with NDAs even with small clients
- Has high quality and business ethics standards that would not depend on the size of the order (otherwise they won't be standards)

I’ll be casting very simple rings mostly in silver (sometimes gold) few times a month. I never used casting services before and I have no idea how the prices are formed.

Roughly what should I expect for the price of the casting service only (without the cost of metal or finishing operations) for 1-2 simple bands with some relief (without major undercuts, tiny prongs or anything fancy)?

My uncle runs a jewelry manufacturing shop in NYC (which I've worked at for a decade until I moved on to 3d printing) that specializes in CNC cut wedding bands so we outsource our casting jobs and from my experience with numerous casting houses, it's a simple breakdown of the daily metal price + the caster's metal markup + a labor fee. The complexity of the design didn't seem to affect the price whatsoever. So having a ton of pavé stones on a model or a simple solitaire e-ring will cost the same in labor. Honestly, I can't really recommend any casting houses in NYC that will comply with your requirements or even be able to cast resins reliably. They all support EnvisionTek and Solidscape resins and that's all they care about. Although some are working on supporting other resins like the B9 and MJWC but they're not there yet. My uncle is making molds (if time permits) from all the models I make for him. I only get complaints from customers who outsource their castings so I've been considering on making my own molds instead of shipping resin models to my clients.

[Jewelermdt]

I do my own casting, but I know several have used Best Cast http://www.best-cast.com/

[Dave D]

ZP casting has been great for me for the past 3 years.

They know 3D printing and casting resins inside and out. They also have several Solidscape printers incase you need something that is unsupportable.

http://zpcasting.com/

Dave

[mongerdesigns]

I recommend Alex from jewelryservices.com if you're on the west coast.

His castings are always perfect.