I bought from the US a casting for a T-slotted cross slide for my Hercus (South Bend copy) lathe. It was a lovely casting and came with excellent full size plan and instructions, and also some helpful links. There is an excellent machining description here: http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/machining-t-slotted-cross-slide-177054/ I had spent hours of milling the casting over a couple of days with 32 mm two tip 3 Morse facing cutter, and 12 mm solid carbide end mill. At the start of one session, after switching to the latter, I had not tightened the draw bar enough, and the cutter pulled the collet chuck out of the taper and climbed down into the work. Naturally, this was when close to the final dimension.

I felt quite sick. My first instinct was to throw it in the bin and forget about it, but of course, that is not possible. I sobered up a bit and started thinking about what to do. It was at least on the bottom. I decided to mill an even slot where the dig in was and make a filler piece to repair it. The problem was where to find a suitable strip of cast iron. I remembered I had an off cut of drain grating from the club, so I dug it out and started bandsawing it to managable dimensions.

I was now in a position to true up the gouge and make a filler piece to fit. I tapped four M3 holes to screw the filler into

I left it overnight and milled it flush this morning. You can see the screws with their allen sockets mostly milled away, and there is a little more to remove once I've cut the dovetail. None of this was quick or easy, but what started as a very bad day in the workshop became a very satisfying problem solving project in its own right. The repair is at the front, under the protruding deck for the top slide, so should be all but invisible. How on earth I am going to engrave the degrees on that deck is a problem for another day.

I was given a Myford vertical slide and it has a horrendous milling cutter gouge in it, really deep. I must dig it out and give it a dose of the same epoxy.