This month has been great for the project. I’ve reached out to local makers and machinists to hopefully make some connections with them for manufacturing my custom metal pieces.

A metal shop close to where I live has looked over my plans for the Flange Nut and Bushings for both the Press and Plough, and quoted me for 1, 10, 25 and 50 units worth. It breaks down as follows:

4140 is Alloy Steel
303 is Stainless Steel

One Press and Plough’s worth would cost $1,107 for alloy, or $1474 in stainless. The tooling and set-up required of a machinist is the same if you’re making 1 or 1000. Buying single custom parts as one-offs is expensive, but the economics of scale can bring down the cost per unit.

10 units brings the cost down 22% to $858 for alloy, or 41% to $871 for stainless.
25 units brings the cost down 37% to $698 for alloy, or 50% to $739 for stainless.
50 units brings the cost down 47% to $593 for alloy, or 59% to $617 for stainless.

The more units I order, the lower the cost is driven per-unit. I imagine this tapers off at some point, but my quote ends at 50 units. This is good news for the future, but as of right now I’m still looking at between $1100-1500 to produce the prototype.

I’ve started a GoFundMe for this project in the hopes of increasing visibility. I’ve already poured almost $1000 into workshop tools, materials and resin prototypes and my well is dry. Until I can secure a new day job, I’ll be relying on the kindness and support of the community to fund ordering prototype parts. You can donate by visiting the GoFundMe page for our project.

Thanks as always,

Eric

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