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Comment by quatrefoil | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't cost $10M in equipment costs to create a basic fabrication facility for short-run metal parts today, right? You pay for land, permitting & compliance, construction, etc. Machinery to cut "consumer-sized" parts out of metal stock, or to stamp sheet metal, usually costs six figures or so.

Lost wax casting, which is done with CNC-machined molds, isn't a capital-intensive process either.

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An old but servicable lathe and mill can be had cheap on craigslist anytime. $5000 with some tooling. $10000 if you want cnc and digital readouts, with plenty leftover for more tooling. new imports can be had for similar prices - there is debate about which is better (both are compromises somewhere, new of what the craigslist stuff was new will cost you $100,000 or more).

or you can send the print to any machinist to manufacture for you. There are many around, but often they won't talk to you for small runs. (but someone will)

This is reminding me of a YouTube channel I watch, Cutting Edge Engineering in Australia. It's a shop that does machining and welding in support of things like bulldozers and other construction and mining equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/@CuttingEdgeEngineering

There's something hypnotic watching someone fabricate precision objects.

Wow, that’s an amazing channel! I expected to see big parts on big turning machines from your intro, but somehow they were even bigger and better than anticipated in the best possible way.

in equipment costs you are correct.

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