Hehe, yep, been there, done that! I rushed a flask once and the remaining water flashed to steam. There is a peephole in the kiln door about a half-inch in diameter, and when that happened a muffled “poof” and a white cloud blasting 20 feet across the shop through that hole… 
Before the internet, I learned most of what I know by a little reading and a lot of “By Gosh - by golly”. (trial and error)
How do you cast? By centrifuge or hand pour?
Another possibility is photo etching. I provided the artwork and a company etched a very detailed design for me out of copper. The same process used to produce money printing plates. Cost me $45.00 and had the piece in less than an hour. In my case the copper was used to make a vulcanized rubber mold for wax injecting to reproduce the pieces.
I get what you mean, but in this case, the positive IS negative lol. Because the finished brass piece is a negative of the final artwork stamped into the leather.
So the GF makes a positive, the wax is a negative, the brass is a negative, and then the leather impression is the final- a positive.
Oof. That doesn’t sound fun… and I don’t have a kiln. 
Maybe I’ll look into the companies that make them from the wax? Any suggestions or ones you know that do great work?
Hand pour. Mostly petrobond sand with wood or foam patterns ( i don’t have a kiln).
Sorry, no. I did everything myself (with the exception of the photo etch). I think hiring that job out though is the best option for your circumstance. You only need a limited number of designs, and casting can get you into a deep hole of equipment/education needed.
This is not a recommendation, just results of a google search.
Have you considered lurking on a leather workers’ forum? I would expect the topic has been discussed there many times. I lurked around one once. Some of those guys get pretty grumpy.
Well, I was more interested in the possibility of my Glowforge being the catalyst- able to make really intricate carvings that maybe could then be cast in brass.
There’s more people with a GF here than a leather forum, so I figured this was the best place to ask the feasibility of that question.
I’m on a leatherworking reddit too, but nobody answers my questions there…
I think you might be talking about sand casting. If that is the case then you can use the gf to make models and skip the wax and put the model ( acrylic probably best ) into the sand to make an impression. The sand creates the mold to pour the brass into.
You may find this post of interest (also, do a forum search for casting to find more):
To be clear I meant the best company to cast brass stamps made for leather.
I was just going to go find that to post. 
I’ve also engrave acrylic for the molds, but of course it leaves a texture behind. To avoid it, I’ll make a master by gluing the pieces together and then make a silicone mold out of that.
Wait- are you saying you used engraved acrylic as masters for even the wings above?
Cast in sand? What type of metal did you use for those examples?
When you say “glue the two halves together and use silicone” what do you mean exactly? You are glueing two acrylic halves together or… I’m lost.
Your prices turned out really cool
I’ll be digging into this post immediately! Thanks!
Oh sorry, I should have been more clear.
The skeleton dogs were cast with low-temp pewter from a store called RotoMetals and the link is in the post I shared below. (Check the store pricing before ordering from Amazon because it was much cheaper ordering it directly.)
The feathers and base of the wing were cut out of wood, and then I glued them together and made a silicone mold out of that. Pewter is easy to sand, but doing it this way gave me a smoother result than I could get with making a mold of an engraving. Of course, a lot of this won’t work the same for brass since it melts at such a higher temp, but maybe it’ll give you some ideas.
This is the wood wing and wood cross glued into a box so I could make a mold of it. (I put the cross in upside down and had to mold it a second time. )
The silicone molds.
The final metal castings.
This was my first attempt at casting.
Your castings are really incredible! I got discouraged after my one try. I had used Mold Max 60 high temp casting silicone and I think it was too old or something. I could hardly get it mixed before it got too thick for any bubbles to come out. (I don’t have a pressure pot or vacuum pot.) My castings were just a mishmash. What mold making silicone are you using? I’d like to give it another try.
yes it will work. you are on the right track. I believe someone here made a (sorry the term has escaped me) metal square where you put hot melted metal in to, however, his was made out of acrylic. He first engraved the acrylic then used a low melt temp. metal (mostly nickel) and came out with the finished shape that the acrylic had been engraved into. I hope this makes sense. but this is the same idea you have.
In my experience (limited) the problem is getting the wax back out in one piece. Might be able to do it if you treat the acrylic as sacrificial…
You’re supposed to burn the wax out.
