  We use multipolar expansions to find the force on a gold coated sphere above
a gold substrate; we study both an empty gold shell and a gold coated
polystyrene sphere. We find four characteristic separation ranges. In the first
region, which for the empty gold shell occurs for distances, d, smaller than
the thickness of the coating, the result agrees with that on a solid gold
sphere and varies as d^(-2); for larger separations there is a region where the
force behaves as if the coating is strictly two dimensional and varies as
d^(-5/2); in the third region the dependence is more unspecific; in the forth
region when d is larger than the radius, the force varies as d^(-4). For
homogeneous objects of more general shapes we introduce a numerical method
based on the solution of an integral equation for the electric field over a
system of objects with arbitrary shapes. We study the effect of shape and
orientation on the van der Waals interaction between an object and a substrate
and between two objects.
