If you're interested in this sort of thing it wouldn't hurt to get an estimate from a water-jet cutting place. It's a really good process for cutting complex 2D shapes in flat materials for low-volume production runs.
(Of course you need to get the gear outline into an appropriate file format first.)
Have you compared waterjet and laser prices? There's a shop down the street from me that will do custom laser cutting (in Masonite or wood) but they want me to bring in an EPS file to get a price quote. What should I expect to pay?
(Of course you need to get the gear outline into an appropriate file format first.)