Had an interesting / frustrating day in the shop today. My Grizzly Wide-Belt sander stopped working. I looked inside, and the platen was clearly shredded. Funny as I've never used it.

So I looked up the manual, and it looks pretty easy to remove it. Just put in this key / hook that they provide and pull.

Well, no dice pulling with all my strength (or lack thereof). So I call up Grizzly tech support, and the tech, who was very nice, said to just pull it, or take a lever and lever it out.

That clearly didn't work. I eventually put in the platen tool, and hit it with a small sledge hammer. Several hundred times. Didn't budge. I love the concept of taking a sledge hammer to an expensive power tool. I asked if spraying a lubricant would help, and he said no.

Called tech support again, asked if there is a panel to be removed to get more access. Nope. Then I asked if they have technicians who can come out to the workshop to fix it. Found out that they have no service department.

Eventually, I sprayed some dry teflon lubricant, and a few dozen more hammer strikes and it miraculously came out. So no great points there for Grizzly tech support, and I'm stunned that they don't have techs that for a price would come out to fix it. Felder certainly would. The Grizzly tech said that I could have it freighted back to Grizzly for thousands of dollars, and then pay their tech $95/hr to fix it.

So, my question is, what do other people do when they need repairs to large machines, like a wide-belt sander, and the manufacturer doesn't provide that service?