So, you pay alot for tools...

[festooltim]

My brother is metal fabricator for hospital equipment all stainless steel. He would go and install his products in hospital testing labs sometimes where they do all their research with all the animals. They would have a lot of mice rats and rabbits. He would have get special clearance and key cards and go through sterilization rooms to get to the rooms where his work was He was told they would have years of research and a million dollars in a pair of mice. That is some expensive rodents.

 

[HowardH]

my kid goes to school with the son of Don Henley of the Eagles.  I ran into him at a school function a few years ago and he told me they take over 20 Semi-s full of equipment for their tours.  That's a lot of equipment!  I asked how they get their stuff overseas for tours and he said they use a freighter.  Air Freight would cost $750,000!  It's all about the money... 

 

[JeremyH.]

Lenses alone for cameras used for Hollywood quality movies cost around $60k.

But if you want to talk about real big money... My uncle designed and built a plant to process titanium scrap. The project cost $125m. The company that hired him bought 80% of the free worlds scrap titanium at a time where literally it sat in piles the size of football fields, where no one knew wtf to do with it. The company made a profit of $3-4b after the titanium had been separated out from the scrap.

Oh ya the company had to pay a lot more than $125m though because they tried to use water from a river for cooling the electrical system, instead of the distilled water he told them to use. Basically they had to replace the whole electrical system, with lines running that were 4' diameter.