Leach and Garner gold mill consulting

Reference to their "fancy wire" division — progressive-die shaped-wire production sliced "like a piece of bologna" to make eyeglass hinges at sub-penny cost. Establishes the competing process the additive method has to beat.

Plus, how do we make these hinges today? If you go down to Attleboro, Massachusetts, there's a company called Leach & Garner, which is the reason Attleboro is the gold capital of the world. They have what they call a fancy wire division. Instead of making round brass or gold-filled wires — brass with gold on the outside — they have a room the size of this one that has all these dies. Instead of a round wire, they have all kinds of shapes. If you put a hole in that, you've got a big long wire, but you basically slice it like a piece of bologna in a shear machine, and you've got one of your hinges. In fact if you do it right, you get two hinges, because you put two of them, one on each side. Then you just use the screw, and screws are cheap. A hinge like that for your eyeglasses, probably less than a penny.