You don't do shit like this if you don't enjoy it. That's the point - "I have power over this piece-of-shit sector gear." Me? I've found that welds come in only two varieties (brittle and mooshy), neither of which lend themselves well to gear trains. When you study mechanical engineering they require you to learn fucktons about steel, its tempering, its chemical makeup, its crystalline structure, and all the shit that goes horrifically wrong when you heat it up to cherry red. Me? I'd rather halfass something from Amazon than attempt to cut something out of cheeze whiz and assume it'll last the season but it ain't my mower and I endorse the spirit of the exercise.
Oh, no. Don't get me wrong. I totally get that this is fun. lm is having a blast in his shop and I'm having a blast reading these. I was just more thinking out loud that $50 and maybe near the same amount of labor for something new doesn't sound all bad. Edit: Sorry lm, if what I said sounded mean. I did not mean it that way in the slightest.