danielucf, that's a really dificult one to answer, and I should really just grasefully ignore the question about cost, but it's not the sort of thing I'd do. Besides - bulion prices are right there, so it's not like I'm keeping a seceret. Sterling silver casting grain can be had for £0.69/g at the moment - thin walled cherry cap will be around 6.5g so £4.85, add to that a gram of wax at £0.06/g, a flask (half/quater kilo) of investment at £100/kg which'll do a hundred or so caps, and the cost of melting the metal... makes me sound like a rip-off merchent expecting somewhere in the region of £30/cap? Let me explain...
I get my casting done in Birmingham, they have machines I can't afford (circa £20,000 each!) and the expertiese to produce perfect casts every time. So there's postage down to, and back up from Birmingham; and they charge(d last time I had work done, cost varies depending upon the bulion price) £1.25/g giving us £8.12 per cap. Only it'll be more than that, as they don't trim the sprue of exactly, just snip it with shears, so there'll probablyl be an extra gram or two which I can only get scrap value back for, but I won't be charging you for that. And they're not ripping me (or anyone) off, they have the initial cost of the machines to recoop, the cost of labour, the cost of electricity, investment, and the metal its self.
When I get caps back from them, I have to cut off the remainder of the sprue, file the top smooth, paper all five sides, and pre-polish.
Then there's postage down to Edinburgh, the fee of £2.50-ish per Hallmark, and the postage back up. Rasing the per/cap cost to £10.50-ish + four lots of postage £x split between y number of caps.
Finally there's finishing as noted above.
Thin cap 6.5g, thick cap 15g. Approximatley I won't know the exact weights until I get testers made.
Oh and all values quoted are ex.VAT at 20%! Jewellery trade always works ex.VAT... drives me nuts!
