The biggest tip I can give for this project is to ensure that the counter bore is tight enough. The recommended speeds are too slow for effective cutting and can lead to binding of the bit. This caused me to have to carefully walk it into tolerance. Another issue I ran into was boring out the brass and steel piece,the Jacobs chucks are so worn down that they do not hold the bits well enough, especially for the load that is exerted on them.
Assuming that the raw stock is the price provided at the bookstore and that it takes 8 weeks to complete this project, here are the numbers. Machinist hours is based on 1 credit hour being 3 hours of work, multiplied by 8 weeks
Aluminum: $10.95 | Brass: $9.95 | Steel: $3.95 | Acrylic: $5.25 | Clock Parts: ~$10
Machinist Hourly: 24 hours x $21 = $504
Total: $544.10
The usage of new tooling and tool fixturing. A majority of my time was spent fighting with the bits slipping in the Jacobs chucks. Also many of these parts can be accomplished with great accuracy by the use of CNC processes on more of the steps. The easiest one being the clock base, with all easy to CNC features, the process time would be shorten greatly with the introduction of automation.
To create 10,000 units using an automated process subtracting labor cost, we can assume that the total cost would be $40.10 X 10,000 units = $401,000
To create 10,000 units using the processes done in the EMEC one could expect the costs to be $544.10 X 10,000 units = $5,441,000