< CHOOSING A FOUNDRY
FOUNDRY FEES
Not many people would describe having a sculpture or other design cast at a professional art foundry as being inexpensive. In fact metal casting can be a very expensive process indeed, with only the smallest and simplest of lost wax designs costing under $US 1000.
Despite the expense, a professionally produced cast has to be seen in some context. There is little in the way of automation to be found in art foundries – the wide variety of unique artworks typically produced in this environment makes any outlay on mass production tooling inpractical. The labour used to produce cast artworks is generally very skilled and a great many hours can go into producing even a small sculpture. Capital equipment (furnaces, air compressors, welders, hand tooling), is expensive to purchase and much of this machinery requires ongoing maintainance. Most foundries use a lot of floor space – so renting industrial units can also represent a significant overhead, especially in cities.
Materials costs also have to be considered, though compared to wages and facility overheads, materials can make up a much smaller proportion of each cast’s unit cost than most might realise. The cost of each casting alloy varies according to fluctuating rates determined on international metal exchanges, and rubber moulding compounds vary greatly in cost..
All this does not mean the art founder is making a massive profit at the artist’s expense, simply that the distribution of production costs is often quite different to that assumed by the layman. Costs, from whatever source are inevitably passed on to the artist - or whoever else is paying for the work to be cast. The central issue is that a well executed art and design cast is also often a piece of bespoke craftsmanship in metal, built to last hundreds, even thousands of years - a cast sculpture is not a piece of mass produced consumer wear that is obsolete in a few short years at best. As ever, you are likely to get what you are prepared to pay for.
QUOTED PRICES – WHAT’S INCLUDED >
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