My plan for the day was interrupted by a mechanical failure. Regarding my planer, it never occurred to me to open the schrod protecting the chains and gears and inspect the bolts that secure the pulley to the drive. One of those bolts wiggled lose after six years of use, and dropped into the chain, unseating it as it rolled over a sprocket. The bolt was soft enough not to damage the sprocket, however it caused the chain to shear its key pin. It took me a second to arrest the machine by shutting the power to the planer off. You can tell so much about how a machine is running by listening to it. Of course the sound that my planer made required no expert trained at NASA to recognize as problematic. I took the schrod off and assessed the situation. Hmmmmmm, now what. Clean the machine and inspect it, look for broken stuff. Not too bad...probably lucky.
