I have no experience operating a mill, and only a basic knowledge of practices, tooling, tramming, etc. from my work, so this will be a learning experience. The work I'll be doing is nothing special (only what is required to finish an 80% lower) so I expect it to be more time consuming than difficult.
The mill arrived today - just finished cleaning it up, assembling the little odds and ends, and cranked it around a bit. I don't expect to have the vise until tomorrow, so I'll likely spend a chunk of this upcoming weekend practicing on scrap blocks of aluminum. Even though I'll be using a jig when working on the lowers, I'd like to have a little experience with the equipment before diving in.
I don't plan on disclosing total costs during this project, but it can be compared to the cost to finish any 80% lower plus the cost of procuring and shipping the initial material. CB Arms charged the standard price for an 80% lower, I just provided them with the starting material.