I broke one of the 80 tooth gears on my 7x12 today.
I was working on my homebrew ER32 collet chuck when it happened. I was paying a little too much attention to the cut and not enough to how close I was getting to the headstock.
I am just so used to having a 4 inch chuck on the spindle, sticking out a couple inches further than my project. Well, this time the chuck-in-progress was bolted directly to the spindle and I was cleaning up the OD in preparataion for cutting the collet boss tomorrow. The carriage hit the end of the road, the lathe groaned, then the gear gave way with a pop.
I will have to soldier on with no power feed while I await a replacement.
I notice looking at my lathe bed that there is a good inch or more of unused rack gear near the headstock. Has anyone ever milled the bed cut-out longer to take advantage of this unused real estate? It would really come in handy with the shorter ER chuck in place.
