Our model assumes a series. We do not make one-offs, and we do not take one-time orders with low volume. The reason is not reluctance but arithmetic: establishing a new product requires follow-up, sampling, measurement and process qualification before series production can start at all, and that effort has to be spread across a real number of parts.
What we can say today: for pressure die casting there should be a few thousand parts per year or per order. For gravity casting we manage on a fifth to a tenth of that, because the tool costs less.
And the one promise we do make, and have made for a long time: you get an answer to an enquiry within 24 hours. If you only have a sketch, you get an estimate. If you have final files, you get a formal quotation within the same window.
Why the volume threshold differs between the two processes: a pressure die is a hardened steel tool with cooling channels, an ejector system and often slides, and that is the cost that has to be spread across the parts. A gravity mould is more simply built and takes fewer shots, but costs correspondingly less to buy. If your volume sits below the pressure die casting threshold, gravity casting is often the answer rather than a no.
If it sits below both, we say so immediately. An enquiry we decline on day one has cost you one day; an enquiry that sits in the system for six weeks and ends the same way has cost you six.
When you calculate lead time, remember that finishing outside the building is added to everything else. Anodising and painting go to subcontractors, and those days sit outside our own chain. If the part is to be delivered coated, ask for the lead time including finishing — not up to the blast cabinet.
The concrete lead times — from tool order to first sample, and from call-off to delivery in series — are being verified.