Wargames Liberty league? How much their plastic production costs are that is? So design, then mould?

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I've looked into plastics prices.

It'll cost you about 15 grand to get a decent quality Epic-sized sprue created, or a few grand cheaper if you only want vehicles as you can use a cheaper material for that.

That's not including the cost of getting the models designed in the first place.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Thats the old cost surely? I know a few years back my mate in Bangladesh (and his wargames factory) looked into plastics and he was quoted 10 grand for a 'limited run' (an undefined number of runs, certainly he thought you would get increasing numbers of defective sprues after the first 2 or 3 thousand) small sized sprue (the Liberty League size, half the size of the 3rd ed Epic sprues) and up to 100 grand for the large toy sprues that would have to churn out masses. This was assuming he had a plastic moulding machine so no quotes given for cost per sprue to produce. I had assumed the costs would have come down somewhat since.

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

My quoted prices are for good quality sprues, made in the UK, with high detail that will outlive the saleable life of the product itself (the moulding tool can make literally millions of sprues).

It'll cost about 30p per sprue once it's up and running.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Ah, this I think was for an aluminium? mould which wouldn't last and would wear down with successive runs. Commonly used by some plastic wargamers for making unique armies for themselves (there are a few about) or companies for testing production runs.

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

This would be steel for the infantry, and zinc for the tanks as they're simpler shapes that don't wear the mould so much.

You could go for all steel but that'd put the cost up to 20 grand for the epic sized mould.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Short run model companies use an aluminium epoxy resin to make their moulds.  This is poured over a positive master, not milled out in negative like the steel moulds, and is very considerably cheaper.  Generally only good for 3-5000 shots on a low-pressure injection machine though from what I'm told, but again, cheap to remake.

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

That sounds like the beast zap. Any ideas on the cost or companies that do it? (Neil in BD seems to have had all his numbers cut off.)

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I know one down here pretty well.  He does small model kits, and from what I've pieced together I'm guessing the cost to make the mould is probably around the $2500AUS mark.  The cost per sprue in plastic and electricity is pretty trivial but labour is a bit higher as most of these small machines dont have auto-ejection, and some are hand pumped.

You'll need a master split vertically in 2 to make the molds, but I guess a rapid prototype could do this easily enough.  

However, being a low pressure system if you use polystyrene you might have fill issues for 1/300th scale infantry, though vehicles should be a doddle.  I know some of the commercial guys sometimes use a nylon instead, which flows easier and would be nice from a durability point of view, but might be a bugger to get paint to stick to.

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy