Turning Designs Into Finished Products (finding manufacturers)

[joshd1410]

Hey! My first post on these forums having only registered very recently.

I'm currently in the business of making all of my products by hand but am looking now to do something on a larger scale. I have been doing various drawings etc of designs for a while but I am really very stuck with how to actually take it any further than this. From my research so far I have found companies which do prototyping and casting and such but no actual finished jewellery manufacturers. I would basically be looking for a company which I could send my designs to and they could produce some sort of prototype, bulk produce the item and finish it (polishing, attaching chains etc) but most of the places I have approached say they don't supply chains. Do such companies even exist? Since I am quite new to this side of the business I was hoping someone could maybe explain to me a little bit about the best way to get sketches of designs turned into a finished product. ANY help (articles, links etc) would really be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

[josef1]

You can have moulds of you designs made then the caster just has to inject the wax into the mould and you can have as many as you want. but you get shrinkage in the manufacturing so you need to make your masters heavier than normal. You can also find companys who will polish and set stones for you but you will pay well for this unless you are having lots made and can agree a price. Most prototyping company's will create cad models form sketches then produce masters. But it gets very expensive very quickly. Why would you not want to fit your own chains, or do you need them soldering to the finished piece ? Maybe you can find a jeweller who would take the work on ? There are companys abroad in china and Thailand that offer the full service but again you need to be doing very high end or big volume to make all the postage insurance etc worthwhile.