Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-26431461-20190529022825

A while back I posted this thread where I found a broken Rough Cut in a thrift shop. I said I was planning on using its guts to repair my friend's Rough Cut.

Here's an update on it: sadly, the part that I need is also broken in that Rough Cut. Specifically, the small gear that is between the big gear and the rack gear is broken in both blasters (which leads me to wonder if this is a recurring problem with Rough Cuts, me not being a Rough Cut user myself).

So now I will need to 3D print that gear instead, which was my original intentions.

But-

I noticed something. The bigger gear (which is intact) also has a smaller gear moulded on it. That smaller gear is the exact diameter of the gear that I need (picture for reference. Not mine).

So I was wondering if I could just cut off the big gear on that gear to turn it into a small gear and fix the proble. Is it worth it? Will cutting it off make the gear weaker? I'm wondering, because I haven't done it yet and wouldn't want to butcher a gear for no reason. Although I know that I can just 3D print any part as a replacement.

So TL;DR I found out that you can potentially modify the bigger gear by chopping off the big part and leaving the small part to become a replacement for the smaller gear if you have two big gears. But I haven't tried it yet, and I'm not sure if it will break even more. If it does, I'll just 3D print a new gear or even get a replacement metal one for the Rough Cut.

Any thoughts? Should I do it? 