Exactly what I was thinking. I keep reading about all these small machine shops all across the US desperate for work, even taking work on at a loss so they can pay part of their overhead.

My guess is that they looked mainly at larger outfits that couldn't take on a small job, or they just didn't look very hard. Not blaming them: if you don't know where to get something made, it can be hard to figure out where to start looking.