- Joined
- Nov 23, 2014
- Messages
- 2,632
A single plastic gear in a geartrain is almost always there to be an inexpensive "fuse" in the event of a crash. It can also reduce harmonics. Fairly common and reasonable practice.
Agreed, but instead of buying the Enco lathe with a plastic gear as the weak point, my preference was a Grizzly G0709 which uses the more typical brass shear pin on the lead screw. Same design as my Clausing and Rockwell lathes. I haven't crashed a lathe (yet), but did shear the pin on my Rockwell years ago when I tightened the nut/thrust washer on the end of the lead screw too tight.
Bruce