What's actually in a custom quote

Custom quotes surprise people in both directions, so here's the whole calculation with nothing hidden in it.

The four things being priced

• Machine time — the single biggest number, and it scales with volume, not height
• Material — real, but usually the smallest line on a small piece
• Hand time — de-supporting, sanding, assembly. On a detailed bust this can exceed the print time
• Risk — the odds that a tall or thin piece fails at hour nine and gets printed twice

Why doubling the height more than doubles the price

Scaling a model to twice the height makes it eight times the volume. Eight times the material, roughly eight times the machine hours, and a considerably higher chance of a failure partway through that means starting again. A 240mm version of a 120mm bust isn't twice the quote — it's closer to six or seven times.

This is also why splitting a large piece into sections is usually cheaper, not more expensive, even with the assembly time. A failure costs you one section instead of the whole thing.

What makes a quote come back cheaper

• Send a real STL rather than a photo — modelling from a reference is a separate cost, and it's a big one
• Say where the piece will live, so I don't over-specify the material
• Accept a raw finish where the surface won't be seen or touched
• Give me a slack deadline; rush jobs displace scheduled prints and get priced accordingly
• Ask for it in sections if it's large — see above

What the quote is not

It's not a deposit and it's not binding on you. You approve a quote before anything goes on a printer, and nothing is charged until you do. Quotes hold for thirty days, after which material prices may have moved and I'd rather re-quote than absorb it quietly.

How to start one

A rough description is genuinely enough for a first pass — "a 120mm bust of my D&D character, half-orc paladin, on a stone base" gets you a real number. A reference photo or an STL gets you an accurate one.