machine breakage

kind of po’d at shopmaster the last few days, been working ON my new machine instead of WITH it. Decided to work on a project needing course threads Friday and the stress on the change gears found a weak point. Turns out the adjustment bracket for the change gears is/was a casting (pot metal) and didn’t like the stress of the change in gear ratio.

not to mention that the slot at the top which holds a lock nut for the gear idler shaft was machined stupidly (all the way to the edge of the plate which should never have been made of cast to begin with).

Fortunately I’ve got a plasma cutter and the mill still functioned in manual mode, no power feed, without the bracket, thanks to having a separate motor. cut out and made a replacement bracket from real Steel. (then bitched and raised hell yesterday with shopmaster).

Back up and running, quieter and smoother than before.

The new bracket in place and working:

Also made a jig for trigger work to hold all components in their respective places to be able to visually verify the engagement surfaces during tuning.