This is a great question, DrDean! I know you are probably expecting a nice easy answer like "56.5 hours", but it doesn't quite work that way.

Conception: Each design starts as an idea proposed by either my son, my moderators (Badger & Damien) or even someone on the forums. Each is scrutinized for playability, ease of design, how it complements the existing BrickArms, and whether it can actually be molded using the techniques I have available. This can take days, or even weeks to achieve. Once it has the "green light", we begin the modeling.

Modeling: Now the fun begins! Every design is created by me in CAD. Once I have something that looks good, I ask my son what he thinks. He grabs the mouse, zooms in and out, and spins it around on the screen in full 3D. Then, he hits me with the blunt critique that is unique to the pre-teen mind, and I adjust the design as needed to meet his approval. After that, I run it by my moderators to get their feedback, and I rework as necessary. This can consume up to a week to complete (depending on complexity and rework).

Protyping: This is something new to my process. With Mold#1 & Mold#2, I went straight to tooling, and skipped any prototyping altogether. Now, I have equipment at my house that allows me to cut my own small trial molds, and inject them with ABS to try the designs with a real minifig. CAD is nice, but nothing is more satisfying than snapping the gun into a minifig's hand and hearing that satisfying click. To mill the molds, it can take a day or two to program the NC code and cut both halves. I cut my molds with a .0005" stepover (resolution), which yields an incredible finish, but it can take a couple of hours just to cut a small handgun cavity!

Mistakes: Did I goof up? Is it too big? Is it too small? If so, then return to "Modeling", and proceed to "Prototyping". Do not pass GO, and do not collect $200.

Final Evaluation: Now that I have something to hold, I send out the prototypes to my select group of evaluators, and they give me their feedback. If it is all good, then I consider the design "complete", and I move on to the next design. Otherwise, it is back to modeling and we loop again.

Production Tooling: When I have designed enough items to fill a mold, it can take anywhere from 1 month to 2 months to have the mold cut. The production tooling shops through the same thing I do when I make my prototypes, but they do it at a much larger scale, and with incredible precision. They send me injected samples along the way, and I test each to make sure they are perfect. For example, if the grip on a weapon is not exactly 3.16mm, or if the cavity is not polished to my satisfaction, then the mold is reworked until it is perfect.

Production Molding: A molding run takes a couple of days, depending on machine availability and capacity.

Trimming: My parts come on a sprue, and each is hand-trimmed to ensure they look beautiful. Trimming by hand also allows me to inspect each and every molded part to verify the quality. My family and I trim parts in the evenings while we watch junk TV.

Packing & Shipping: Everything about the packing and shipping is as efficient as a home-based business can be. I work 10 hours a day at my day job, so our at-home time is very precious. I am a software developer so I wrote the entire BrickArms site and added special code to generate the invoice printouts and shipping label integration which allows us to print, pack, and ship as efficiently as possible.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of the time it takes to make BrickArms.
---Will