I had made patterns for designs that are not commercially available and then approached a local foundry to ask if they would be willing to cast them for me. After denying that they would do this type of work, I assume, the foreman of the casting shop then said he would slip them in with a batch of other castings as and when the opportunity arose. The firm did this work for me at what I considered to be a very reasonable price but I was told not to ‘advertise’ the fact as they really didn’t want this type of small work. Actually, I can’t understand this as I am certain doing such work for our fraternity on a regular basis could be a very useful income stream, but they know their own business better than I do.
I appreciate that local foundries must be very few and far between these days and only in certain areas of the country if they still exist, but it may still be worthwhile looking around. And no, I am not prepared to name the firm that was good enough to do the casting for me.