This is a lock appliance I'm doing for a friend (don't know if it's ready yet). He gave me specific measurements (down to the millimeter, even halves of millimeters) and I modeled it out in Maya. He had measurements up to 50-60mm and that was too big for the standard grid size, so I took everything and divided it by 2. Then I could divide the grid if I wanted and have the specific units, as well as the Channel Box would display the correct numbers.
Took one whole night to model this thing out, then I just tweaked some edges and the overall wireflow. Later on, after getting some sleep, I slapped on a silver shader and rendered out with Mental Ray.

However, it doesn't end there. I rendered out two images, one grainy and one clean, then I comped and tweaked them in Photoshop. Lastly I took wireframe shots and comped them into the shots as well.