So Wes and I were hanging out at a mutual friend's business, Mona
Lisa Pasta in Charlottesville, Virginia where one of the brighter
employees had decided to clean the rollers of the ravioli machine with
an awl whilst the machine was running...
This did two things:
a) As the machine grabbed the awl between two rollers, it nicely
embossed the outline of the awl on them.
b) The cast iron bearings holding the rollers disintegrated.
Our mutual friend, Jim-Bob, was not happy. Turns out that there
are all kinds of expensive pasta machines imported from Italy to the
states, but hardly anyone stocks parts for any of them if you can even
find out who really made your machine. Turns out this is true of a
bunch of commercial Italian restaurant stuff, espresso machines
included.
I decided to give the project a try. I'd recently purchased a set
of Plastool carbide insert tooling for the Maximat and wondered whether
it would work o.k. on bronze, which seemed to be a decent bearing
material. Wes pulled the machine apart one night and gave me the
measurements: the shafts were .786 " while the bearings themselves had
to fit in a 1.110 " slot. It took about an evening. There were also
flats on the outside of these things for the slot, and another small
flat for an adjustment screw on each. The carbide inserts cut just fine
as did one of those super cheap brazed carbide boring bars.
Jim-Bob watched as Wes slid the bearings on....
"Damn, Charles, that's sexual...."
Payment for the work took the form of unlimited gourmet pizza for
my family of four this weekend which in my case is just as good as
money.
Machine seems to work fine, and I guess Jim-Bob doesn't mind that
the left hand row of ravioli biscuits always has a small dough awl
lying across them. What the heck.
Anyway, my point is, if you're hobby, homeshop machinist small
time and looking for work, check out the restaurant business or leave a
card with the local pasta/bread works/bakery/latte dispensing folks. It
might help to pay for something, or at least get you well and truly fed.

Charles M