Have been thinking about the stupid cost of some bike parts. For instance a replacement reverb button. £34ish for a simple piece of alloy/steel.If you snap it all you need is the metal bit (i assume) and not the stuff that comes with it. I wonder what the cost of say getting 50 of them CNC’ed would be and then selling them for a 1/3 or 1/4 of the price. Derailleur hangers are another thing that seem stupid expensive, granted some are cheap but others are around £25 – thats just stupid! Maybe I am in a dream world with the prohibitive cost of getting stuff made by a CNC company??

I recently CNC’d up my own hanger for my Sherpa and there’s no way I’d get near £25 for it….

It depends on the complexity of the part and the quantity required. You need to factor in a few costs. The design time for the part and jigs/fixtures to hold it when machining, Programming time, machine tools, machine running time, post processing requirements, inspection, etc. When you factor that lot in then 1off or small volume parts tend to be expensive. only when you’re making thousands then the price becomes cheap. but then is there a requirement for thousands off?

For 1offs / low volume 3D printing often is cheaper than CNC.

If you can do it with a 2D shape then laser cutting is pretty cheap (subject to a minimum order). If it needs cnc milling then £34 will seem cheap.

its the metal shaft in this pic that I’m referring to. Looks like a pretty basic design

Apart from CNC how else could this be cut?

Have a look at the hole in the seal that is not a simple profile to generate lots of cuts adds cycle time and ups cost.