You all have to figure the fellas time involved in this. I would have to guess at least an hour of shaping/sanding/polishing AFTER the piece is cut. That's not including the time to program, and run the piece or the material.
90.00 USD is more than fair IMHO. My buddy that runs the machine shop I use has a contract that bills out 850.00 USD an hour on his mills. To stop that for a one of key fob is quite generous.
Kudos! It's a beautiful piece.
Well said Zombie!
People have to remember that most of the less expensive, mass produced products out there are usually cast from a mold or stamped out on an industrial press to keep the cost and manufacturing time in check with profitability.
Milling parts out of solid billets is time consuming. Thus, the finished product is not usually cheap.
I've never been lucky enough to mess with one of the modern automated milling machines. I have, however, worked with an old fashioned manual milling machine a couple of times. The pre-historic ones that used a hand crank to run the piece through the mill.
An old friend of mine used to have one in his auto shop, and he let me use it to make a couple of custom parts for an old electric guitar I was hotrodding. The pieces I made were brutally simple compared to what a modern machine can do, but it was still a huge investment of time and work to produce. But to pay a shop to do it for me would have cost more than the guitar was even worth, so I just considered it a labor of love.
With the complex curves and shapes on that custom keychain, I think $90 US is probably the bargain of the century!
