Casting house recommendation

I just wondered if anyone can recommend a good casting house who'd offer a mailing service. I've had many things cast over the past few years - mainly small silver charms and pendants from detailed natural forms like shells, fossils etc. with varying results. Sometimes they come out great and other times the position of the sprue or mould issues has spoilt the result to some degree and given me a lot of messing about to try and clean up the casting! As it's a bit pricey to have moulds made - especially if you only want a few items cast from each mould - then I feel like I could do with somewhere who would take great care with casting fiddly shapes, to cut down my 'waste' and in terms of castings and money! Can anyone offer any recommendations please? Thank you.

West One Castings 24 Hatton Garden is one favourite, Lucy.

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Originally Posted by Dennis

West One Castings 24 Hatton Garden is one favourite, Lucy.

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Thank you Dennis. I will phone and make enquiries, but just out of interest do you happen to know what sort of price they charge for a cold cast or vulcanised rubber mould for small jewellery items? The last time I had a cold cast mould done recently (in Birmingham) it was about £40 which included the VAT and spruing charge was about £7.

Sorry no, but they crop up regularly here.

I tend to use this lot -

http://www.jewellerycastingscotland.com/pricing/

Helpful, speedy but not overjoyed by my sending them castable resins :)

Thank you both. :D

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Originally Posted by Lucy J

Thank you Dennis. I will phone and make enquiries, but just out of interest do you happen to know what sort of price they charge for a cold cast or vulcanised rubber mould for small jewellery items? The last time I had a cold cast mould done recently (in Birmingham) it was about £40 which included the VAT and spruing charge was about £7.

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Hi Lucy, I use West One. The last vulcanised moulds they did for me were £15 or £20 plus VAT (think it varies depending on size/complexity). The last time I had a cold cure mould was a while ago, but I think it was a similar cost to what you've have had done already.

Thank you for the extra recommendation Lauren. I guess it would be worth me giving them a call to enquire further. I just want some place who will do the best to get good results as it can be disappointing and costly if things don't come out as well as you'd hoped, can't it? I've had mixed results before - some things have come out great but I feel that some castings I've had done have been a bit sloppy and not so much care has been taken.

This guy gets a lot of recommendations on a Facebook group I belong to, and he does mail order: http://www.blackartscasting.co.uk/?page_id=28

Thank you again for another recommendation Lauren - I've just e-mailed them to ask for pricing details etc. :-)