my father told a similar story. his friend, a camera man, wanted to assemble a film camera from scratch. This is Soviet union in the 1960s. cameras were pretty

my father told a similar story. his friend, a camera man, wanted to assemble a film camera from scratch. This is Soviet union in the 1960s. cameras were pretty impossible to "own". Studios owned by the State owned cameras. But he had access to the cameras at the studio. He was not a machinist, but could take them apart and service them. If he went to a machinist to copy the camera privately it would cost him a lot of money. possibly a year's salary. So he would take a part at a time. he went to different ones and told them that it is apart that broke on his movie studio camera and that getting a part from the factory would stall the production. So they did it sometimes free of charge and sometimes he paid them with money, they would charge him about a worth of a quarter for a small part.