Exactly, Nancy nailed it with the risk calculation. I ran the numbers after that one filter saved a casting that would've cost us three days of labor and materials. You're not paying for the filter itself, you're buying insurance against a total loss. The math becomes obvious when you track how much one major defect actually costs in wasted metal, machine time, and missed deadlines. It stopped being a luxury item for us once we treated it as a necessary process control. What's your typical scrap rate on the castings you're running?

Learning from masters in places like Glashütte highlights a CRITICAL divide between mass production and artisanal integrity. Those techniques are often guarded secrets, passed down through apprenticeships that modern education systems simply can't replicate. I've seen similar wisdom in Swiss watchmaking villages, where tactile experience trumps theoretical knowledge every time. It makes you wonder what other SKILLS are disappearing because we prioritize efficiency over mastery.