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Bob,

Now you're talkin! Machining the parts would be my preference as well. The etched plastic will be much cheaper for me right now, but I think this would look great in stainless and be very robust for marine use.

I had built up a model in CAD that I was planning on getting quoted. Here's a link (no scales, just the main parts) - https://a360.co/2Mcaj0r  You can view in 3d and explode the parts to see everthing.

It would hopefully look as nice as the Starrett calipers pics I added below. I would think the main parts might not be too bad price wise, but the engraving will take up a good amount of machine time. I guess it would all depend on the volume of parts they could run off from your specific setup. The pricing usually is based on generating machine code(G code) for their CNC machines, workholding and tooling setup, stock, machine time, and finishing. The more parts you manufacture, the cheaper it gets.

Here's a link to the AI files I've been setting up for engraving. "Scale layers " 1 is your original scale order with a bit of tweaking. "scale layers 2" is where I took a little license to re-order the scales for viewability. "cut layers" has all the parts needed for laminating. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1n-SRHHKW9kFvcUWxmiKXdlR62HL-kwsI?usp=sharing

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