I know there are several folks on the board who do 3D modeling so I thought I'd throw this out here.

A friend of mine has asked me to duplicate a set of antique lamps. They would have to be cast in aluminum or a pot metal after being sculpted. I've been curious about playing around with 3D modeling and then shipping the model to a service bureau to make a full size prototype via a rapid prototyping technique. The lamps are about 2 foot tall and a foot wide so the technique would have to scale.

Does anyone have any experience with rapid prototyping like 3D printing or Multijet Modeling?

Thanks.