[analog31]

As I understand it, the economics of machine shops are a bit weird because of the financing cost of keeping up with the latest equipment. If you have old machines, and not money to buy new machines, then you run old machines.

The most modern shops are in extremely high demand, expensive, always busy, happy to turn down work. If you can design something in a way that lends itself to conventional techniques, you can get it into a smaller shop that may have some idle capacity, or run on the "tool room" machines in the big shop. The big shops always keep a few old machines around for tooling and jig work, rework, and one-offs.

The smaller shops are also willing to take work that's not 100% detailed, even hand drawings. So you don't necessarily even need a CAD operator. "Do things that don't scale."

In kind of an odd analogy, my old high school band mate built a recording studio from cast-off obsolete equipment that he bought for pennies on the dollar, and it meant that he couldn't take the biggest jobs, but he was instantly profitable and never in debt. Likewise, I have a very small side business that involves some basic metalworking, and I do all of it with powered hand tools and jigs that I made from plywood and carbide drill bushings. My capital cost was under 100 bucks.