I designed a bait in collaboration from one of my good friends who is a top tier ice fishing tournament angler. He wanted some specific attributes to the bait and I think we nailed it. I modeled the bait up in Rhino and got quotes from several CNC shops with prices ranging wildly. I got quotes from overseas vendors as low as 300 bucks but it would be 4 to 6 months before they could get it to me. And I got quotes from local CNC shops as high as $7,500, absolutely insane high. I ended up getting it cut at Protolabs for just about 800 bucks. And yes, that is still a lot for the mold that I got but I have a huge list of guys that want this bait profile and have no worries about recouping my investment on this bait profile.
I will be shooting a bunch of baits in this mold over the next couple nights and getting ready to test them out on the ice this weekend!