The cheapest thing that you can go out and buy is far more
expensive than the costliest thing in your junkbox. I have a
small stock of metal and a small machine shop, although I have
just given away the 3D printer that was lying idle for the past
3 years; its rationale having disappeared with the lifting of
the 16mm O gauge garden railway.
Rude comments apart, the essence of amateur radio in my book is
always doing for yourself the maximum that you can.
Did you make your metal stock from ore that you mined?
I have a big piece of quarts that one of these days I'll carve up and make
crsytals out of.