Information about setting up your own miniature production business.

Revenue from the Ebay sales of Kevs old miniature collection is being used to fund the initial mould making. To cover the running of the house and bills etc Kev has to do approximately 8 freelance standard miniatures per month. As a lot of his work is from America we are paid in US Dollars which at the moment is a really bad exchange rate. Once he has done his 8 freelance minis he can then work upon minis for Hasslefree.

The road to production….from green to a casting

1: Kev gets an idea and makes a green. As he has to fit this in around his freelance work this can take a few weeks.

2: That green is posted to Nottingham to be made into a master mould (£5 postage with insurance and £47.50 plus VAT for a master mould. Also incurred is labour at £22 plus VAT per hour and white metal at £5.76 plus VAT per kilo. If the mini casts well immediately with little wastage then the labour costs are low, but if there are problems then labour costs are high.

DID YOU KNOW? that to get 10 copies of the ‘Demonette on the altar’ of a good enough casting standard to be sold there were 100 made?? The reason for this was the chains that lay across the altar top. Due to the body of the altar being so thick, the metal wanted to stay there instead of filling the loops. Hence the altar top has been reworked and the limited ten editions are being sold on Ebay at one per week. Of course we have now had the extra expense of making another master and production mould of the altar base.

3: Once the caster has ten/twelve good copies of the green they are used to make a production mould. These cost between £27.50 and £38.50 each. Also added on is £22 per hour labour and the cost of the white metal. Not forgetting the compulsory 17.5% to the tax man which applies to each of the above items !!

4: If we need to have the moulds at home then the cost for posting each batch of moulds is £18.50.

5: Once we have told the caster how many of each copy we need, then they are produced (with the above labour and white metal costs) and posted to us. To send a 1kg package of miniatures by royal mail costs £6.55 with insurance.

As you can see it isn’t a cheap way to start off !!!

And that is why Hasslefree may take a while to build up a range of its own but please bear with us as Kev is going as fast as I can crack a whip!

You can e-mail Sally at: mrshasslefriesian AT hotmail DOT com