Finally got something moving at the braces front. One of the guys got back to me with a quote (haven't heard anything from the other guy in a while).
Here it is from his e-mail:
"The "fork brace set" is made up of an upper and lower brace.
The price of the material, 7075 is right around $45 a set.
The anodize would be approximately $100 for the 4 sets. $100/4 = $25 per set
I say approximately $100 because it seems somewhat arbitrary at times, it changes, but mostly upward.
The machine shop programing and setup costs part would be spread over 4 sets, so at $160 a set x 4 = $640. That is really a hour piece for each individual part, and keep in mind there is 6 setups involved, which is pretty cheap.
As you can see the cost are spread over 4 sets, a reducing in number of sets would raise the cost of the remaining ones.
So, at 4 sets,
$230 a set."
What do you guys think? It doesn't seem like a bad price for a fully custom set of braces (stronger than the original ones) fully done anodized and all.
ishaw and gis_guru let me know if you're in on those braces. If you think they're too expensive and you would like to find your own machine shop to do them I can always mail you the CAD data.