It might be advisible to break this out into a separate topic, but I don’t have energy for it now:
There should be more casters to turn to here than I know of, so it would be sweet if others could fill in with tips, but here goes my casters.
Oh, and always order both a master mould and a production mould. All moulds are stored indefinitely by casters. And when production moulds wear out, the caster will create a new one from master castings.
Always order some master castings for yourself so you can recreate your range even if the caster somehow would go under without sending you your moulds or offer to ship them to another caster. Not to worry: The one time a (new) caster had to close, we arranged for him to ship all Tjubling moulds to another caster company on my expense.
When ordering metal casts, always choose leadfree whitemetal. It doesn’t matter if metal alternatives containing lead are cheaper. Go leadfree, since lead is a tad poisonous and can even whither away with lead rot if fortune disfavours a miniature in the long run.
Also: Since I burnt out over two years ago, metal prices have increased bonkers amounts. My usual rough estimates of costs will no longer be relevant (and I need to check new rates with casters and raise prices accordingly on AM stuff, but I don’t yet have the energy for it - anyone planning on ordering metal AM minis would be wise to do it before I find the energy). Still, higher prices for metal castings looked feasible when I ordered some restock from Czechia half a year ago.
Griffin Moulds JJP: British whitemetal spincasters. Spinmoulds can take something like 5-10 28mm infantry sculpts, so you want to maximize use of space per spinmould. Either by sending them numerous sculpts to fit into one (and send back any that may not fit), or by asking them to take multiple master casting copies in resin of your sculpt/s, as many as can be made to fit.
@Sjoerdo can vouch for Griffin’s quality. Shame about Brexit, though.
When ordering from Griffin, order spins. 1 spin = 1 castings of all models in the mould.
Zealot Miniatures: British resin casters. Great casters as well. Shame about Brexit.
When ordering from Zealot, order casts. 1 cast = 1 castings of all models in the mould.
Kazrak Miniatures: Large Polish whitemetal spincaster. Strange standard terms (apparently their normal customers are companies that order X amount each month!), but ordinary casting orders can be arranged if you talk to them: I.e. occasional bulk orders only when you ask for them, often with many months or years of intervals.
Order spins with Kazrak, just as with Griffin. And fill out the spinmould with content.
Custom Made Miniatures: Czech firm, run by Jan Kral. Metal caster, not centrifugal spincaster. Currently in fallow since he concentrates on other things, though he do take orders from existing customers since he have all gear and moulds at hand. I can put you in contact with him in a private message, or at least ask him for you, if he’d be willing to take onboard a new customer.
CMM is the cheapest casting company I know of, but usually with long random waiting times since it’s run on the side of other stuff in Jan’s life.
Order casts from CMM. 1 cast = 1 casting of all miniatures in a mould.
And then there is another large UK metal spincaster whose name escapes me since we only were customers there a short while, following another caster’s end of business. We then had most of our spinmoulds shipped from there, to @tjub , then to Kazrak Miniatures, when dark omens about Brexit started forming. I can check their name once back home on the PC if you want.
Cheers