Hello I have a piece that my traditional bronze foundry is having trouble with. I loaded it onto Shapeways ( I've used SW many times) to see if they could print the piece in bronze. It passed all the tests but its at least double what the foundry would charge IF they could get a clean piece. The size of the piece is close to 100mm, and is dinosaur shaped. Can I hollow it out ( with thicker walls) and still get it in bronze but for cheaper? Will the design collapse when the bronze is poured? If you know anything about this process let me know. Below are some WIP images of the dinos. I'll be hacking off the tails to make sure they fit into the bronze bounding box.
Overall, yes, you can. The "skin" of the dino is going to have to meet the minimum wall thickness. The trick is going to be that they must be able to get to the inside to clean out the remnants of the mold. It's going to require quite a large hole.