Many years ago I was involved in a project to adapt high quality stone carving chisels and large wood gouges (1 "+) to pneumatic automotive wrench equipment. The chisels and gouges came from a maker in Italy, the pneumatic coupling was made in California and a "snap on" handle was made by a guy in NY so the tool could be used with a maul or heavy mallet. After doing a set successfully for myself I was besieged by requests to produce them for others. I set up a system, not unlike Ken that had pre-priced the components so that each buyer could deal directly with the component's producers. I am sad to report that I know of only 2, both of which I expedited, out of about 100 orders that got the completed tools. The suppliers, though well meaning had their regular work and would slot this work into their calendar at a first come first served basis. So in some cases it meant waiting a year for the couplings or some of the work from Italy. This was not a business for me, at the time my "business" was carving large stone and wood sculpture, and it was clear that it took someone with a profit motive to get this from one end to the other. For a project like this I would be happy to pay an expert a 10% premium to expedite the process. You do the math ..... on 100 guns it's not a bad paycheck. (keeping in mind that the buyers would still pay the craftsman directly ).

Al