I agree with your points, i’m a big fan of decentralized everything… manufacturing, banking, power
my point was that you cant just assume there is no change in any cost but shipping and in my opinion if were talking about anything other than simple parts the cost will go up.
but if you want me to put my ball buster hat on…
Why does tooling need to be hardened steel? Why not a resin that is good for a few shots, but then can be reground and used as a new resin tool?
it doesn’t need to be hardened steel and quite often it’s not. Generally soft tools like you are suggesting are made from thermosets which can not be reground and used over again like thermoplastics. When you do regrind a thermoplastic you can max out at about a 20/80 regrind/virgin material mixture and that’s on the high side. Every time you do reuse material like that the properties degrade slightly and that’s probably not great when you need specific tolerances in your mold.
low volume tools still cost money and by nature that cost must be amortized over fewer shots.