Let me preface my comments by saying, I love machining and understand people desire to machine and use there equipment, and if iits spending 3 hours to make a $5 item is what make you happy so be it.
I make many things, like parts for a arbor press that were no longer available, or a shaft for an obsolete machine, but what I won’t do is spend 2-3 hours and use up tooling, for something I can buy for less than $20. I have more than enough work to last me the rest of my lifetime, even if nothing else crops up. Will I spend 2-3 hours to make a $100 part, yes I probably would, but to me my time is far to expensive to diddle around with small stuff.
I understand:
Pride in making something
Gaining experience with your tools
Wanting it/needing now
A custom part
When I can buy tool blocks all day long from CDCO (bought hundreds), Shars and others for $11 to $15 each and have them in 2-3 days, why bother trying to make them.
Maybe I’m the only one on the site that feels this way, again I’m not demeaning anyone, if that what you want to do, then do it, I just don’t see the rationale.