The quote disappoints
The quote for the revised pattern, the one that was supposed to be a whole lot cheaper, came in at $5,700 to make a mold and $.40 a pair to make the keys.
While the hunt for better quotes continues, it's time to see if another way to make the keys is possible.
Candidates are:
1) Print out a few master keys and from them make self-vulcanizing rubber molds, and cast by hand.
This is time and labour-intensive, but perhaps can be streamlined.
2) laser-cut the sides of the keys, and separately cut the connecting parts, so that they can be glued together by hand. This may be the best compromise.
Ken.
Comments
So $5.5-6.5 k is the approximate low-ball price - wow. How do companies do it? For example, the M-audio keyboard has a least one design for the black keys, and 7 key-shapes for the regular white keys, plus 2 special white keys for each end. then there's the plastic pieces for the base - 4 or so types.
Say each key's mold creation costs a more realistic $20-30 k.
So just making the molds (not designing them, testing them etc.) costs a cool $250 K.
Hmmm.