Cost of custom china clay spot designs and colors? (2 Viewers)

jbutler

Royal Flush
Joined
Oct 28, 2014
Messages
10,669
Reaction score
10,756
Seeing pokersepp's new set on CT made me get a hankering for super bright colors currently unavailable in a custom compression clay chip. I remember the CPS GB folks noting that the cost of a custom mold was prohibitively expensive for a single customer, but I can't recall whether that group or anyone else ever looked into the cost of just custom spots and colors.

Anyone have an idea? I'd love to get a ballpark for both the colors and the spots individually. From what I recall of the discussion of the manufacturing process, creating a new spot pattern is fairly involved.
 
I think the stress of the CPS group buy may have taken a few years off Joe's life. Not sure about the dollar amount though. The spot injection seems to be part of the mold though, unlike a CPC true compression mold.
 
thanks, guys. i believe that's the case, too, but i'm looking to hear from someone who has either gone through the process or seen quotes from the manufacturer.
 
Yeah, colours has been high on my agenda lately.

I keep coming back to the chip factory and wishing for some brighter, higher contrast chips.

The CPC palette could do with being extended...

Watching thread with interest...
 
You might be able to get some more spots added to the Tower and Spear mold, but I think that each new spot would be a new mold and those would run aprox 10k each.

- - - - - - - - - Updated - - - - - - - - -

I too like the bright colors and Joe got the factory to do a really bright light purple too which looked great, but wasn't right for the CPS chips.
 
...but I think that each new spot would be a new mold and those would run aprox 10k each.

post-26672-I-just-threw-up-in-my-mouth-a-nyZP.gif


juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust a bit outside of what i wanted to pay for china clays.

thanks for the response, tubs.
 
Yeah... it would take another group buy to make it happen.
 
Yeah... it would take another group buy to make it happen.

what about using the existing spots available (4D14 and 8V), but customizing the colors? is there a cost associated with that change? and what are the minimums required to put a run through?
 
Joe should be able to use the new colors on the old greek key molds, but I read something just today on big blue which indicated that Joe was phasing out the 4d14 great walls in favor of the 8v chips. I don't know if that is because the 4d14 mold is broken or what.

You know what... I seem to recall that in fact the chip molds are modular (at least to some extent) that the chip face part of the mold could be separated from the spot part of the mold (at least on the great wall chips). It might be worth looking into after all.
 
I seem to recall that in fact the chip molds are modular (at least to some extent) that the chip face part of the mold could be separated from the spot part of the mold (at least on the great wall chips). It might be worth looking into after all.

If this is the case, then the cost of a new spot pattern may be substantially lower than the cost of new molds - the outer & face molds need to be much stronger and harder, which makes them more costly to make.
 
I believe the T&S molds for the CPS chips cost $10000. I don't know if that was for just one or for both molds that were made, but suspect that it's per-mold. I don't know if the T&S molds are a modular design, but I suspect so.

The mold cost quoted by the original BLGOP supplier was $4000, and it was modular in design (the quoted cost was for the outer ring portion only). The modular molds planned for use in the BLGOP run were designed so that the mold ring component with the chip face (cross-hatched T&S symbols) could be interchanged with something else. The base mold (including the spot configuration and plumbing) was a separate piece and was not quoted, since the factory already had those mold components (previously used with the PWGOP chips from mrchip.eu).

So logic would indicate that the smaller of the two mold components (ring) costs $4000 and the more-complex mold base component (containing spots) would cost more. That makes PGI's referenced $10K per mold cost look about right, since both pieces were required for the CPS chips.

PGI noted that one of the CPS molds had been broken and repaired; unsure what broke exactly or how much it cost to repair. But I do know that using old molds is one of the reasons that subsequent production runs of china clay chips start having thickness consistency issues.


A minimum run of 30,000 chips (typical requirement) would put the cost of a completely new mold at around 33c per chip, on top of a factory baseline price of 10c-15c per chip. After adding art fees and shipping, the final chip cost should be in the 50c-60c per chip range (plus whatever profit margin is required by PGI, if going that route).
 
What do you think about the feasibility of someone creating a custom China Clay company. Someone with relationships in China and a bit of knowledge could seemingly put together a few stock modular molds (similar to CPCs A-Mold or Diamond Square) and offer a choice of colors and spot patterns for what should be less than 25 cents per chip in costs. Customers who wanted to spring for a custom mold could pay the $4000 or whatever extra for the outer ring portion.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Back
Top Bottom