I will defaintly ask them to watch the process, so I can then improve my own. I doubt they will let me take pictures....but you never know.

Yes, I did sand casting. I wanted to do investment and lost wax casting, and I have even purchased $800 in silicon to do so, but after talking to the casting companies, sand casting is cheaper. You really only need to do lost wax if you need every little detail to be perfect. Also the chance for failure and inpefections goes to almost nothing, where as sand casting will be slightly different each time depending on how well the patter releases.

There are also different kinds of sand I can use, I may have to experiement with that.