I have a friend playing a spell caster that wants to try out something new for his character. He's been initiating now and then and thinks it's time to find some magical 'thing' to be good at. So, he started to look at both enchanting and making Orhicalcum. Problem is, to make that stuff takes a long f'ing time (28 days). However, it seems to be a lucrative hobby. But there are a few concerns. Namely...what does the stuff even do? What do you get for one unit of orhicalcum? And does it have anything to do with enchanting?

The price is somewhere in the back of Street Magic or Arsenal, in one of the compiled tables.

It does surprisingly little. It's mostly used as a raw material to build foci from. It's relation to Enchanting is that you use the Enchanting skill to make it, IIRC, and that you use Enchanting to make foci, for which oricalchum can be a component.

SR doesn't do "magic items" a lot.

Well, you can make your own foci for less than the shops offer them for...

have you seen the ideas aunty ancient had in the ancient files?
Air Jesus Sneakers, Astral Eye, Endless Six-Shooter and the such.

You can also allow him to make a unique enchantment, if you are pretty braze and/or trusting. Given Orichaculm's magical metal nature, and the fact it is the most potent magical metal, I would require it to be necessary for construction of a unique focus. How much, depends on what he wants to do. For such untreaded territory, I wouldn't allow the extra dice from an Orichaculm unit unless he puts more then you ask for as a base requirement.

Well, if we're talking about enchanting simple items like foci, how much material do you need? Is that in Street Magic?

no, that's unneeded bookkeeping . .
if it's a weapon, you need the weapon and the focus materials.
if it's anything else, you need the focus materials and basically build the focus from scratch.

Starts on page 81 of Street Magic, goes through page 85.

The gist is that for the combined cost of 44,000 for the radical copper, mercury, silver, and gold, you can make up to 8 units of orichalcum for a combined maximum value of 400,000 , and a profit of 356,000 . Also, orichalcum can be used as an enchanting reagent, separate from the actual materials needed, for a +2 dicepool to the Enchanting Test for each unit used, with no apparent maximum for how many times you can use it in a crafting attempt.