I don't think anyone mis-understood you, viper...

The tangent we went off on had more to do with the fact several of us (at least I have) have undertaken projects like this and ended up investing more time and energy than was worth it considering factoring in an hourly labor rate for our time -- when it was all said and done, we could have just bought a manufactured model cheaper.

And I was trying to make it clear; perhaps the message didn't come through: Some people absolutely love tinkering around on their own projects and happily investing their time on something of this sort of scope... and I do too sometimes. But from strictly a cost perspective, it's often times cheaper just to buy it -- and I think that's kinda what Coug (the original poster) was trying to figure out.

And we agree -- either the Hydrapress at $170 or the Toad press at $185 (I think that's what he gets for those nowadays) is worthy of praise and should be considered bargains. That's because some of us have tried to replicate things like that and seen how much time and energy go into them...