There are many questions in cell biology regarding the combined chemical-mechanical interactions between a cell and its surroundings. The mechanical feedback that a cell receives from its surroundings has a direct impact on its behaviour (eg. differentiation). We have developed free-standing cantilever substrates to investigate the forces exerted by cells. Cantilevers were fabricated using a gold lift-off method and released using a HF vapour etch of the underlying SiO2. By varying the thickness of the gold layer from 100nm to 450 nm -along with the cantilever dimensions- cantilevers with spring constants varying from 0.001 and 2 N/m are produced. The theoretical range of the resulting fundamental frequencies is approximately from 1 kHz to 15 kHz.