Engineering / Research and Development

Recently, my husband was working with a consultant, who reminded me of certain people working in cryonics. He was supposed to be helping my husband produce a working prototype of a toy. There were some small parts, which were not functioning as they were supposed to. He suggested metal-plating the parts, as a possible solution. My husband had me call around, to see if I could find someone local, to plate the parts, and I found a company that would do a batch, for $500. The consultant said he was not sure if the particular method they were using would produce the right results. He wanted to order a lot of expensive materials, and try various methods on his own and, as far as I know, he has no experience with this type of work. As I told my husband, "It would be stupid to pay Mr. X a very healthy hourly rate to teach himself how to do a process plenty of other people already know how to do." We have a deadline, and a budget. Cryonics has a DEADline, too, and it's foolish to be paying people to "research and develop" equipment that already exists, so they can produce cheesy DIY versions of existing technology.