We bought a refurbished KitchenAid mixer a couple of years ago. It's pretty big. I don't know the model right now. We made pasta for the first time last week. Threw a bag of semolina down on the counter; cracked some eggs on it and, with a very little water kneaded for a long time. It was very stiff.
We started making spaghetti with the meat grinder extruded attachment. Half way through the batch the mixer started making a grinding noise. Turns out we stripped every damn tooth off a 45deg gear in the box. Best pasta I've ever eaten!!!
I cleaned the gear box out and ordered new gears, gasket, and a ring. I'm putting it back together as soon as the grease comes in. I'm not sure how I'll make homemade pasta next time though.
If you make such a stiff dough then knead by hand. I did the same thing to my Kitchenaid a few years ago when kneading a too-large batch of challah. I have not damaged the replacement sacrificial plastic gear again (it's designed so just that cheap component will fail without causing more damage). I have taken apart lots of machinery and the inside of that Kitchenaid was beautifully made. I hope you repacked the grease when you reassembled it.
For pastamaking, I have an Atlas hand cranked pasta roller/cutter with various size attachments I bought over 20 years ago. It' all steel construction and will probably work for another 20 years.
We started making spaghetti with the meat grinder extruded attachment. Half way through the batch the mixer started making a grinding noise. Turns out we stripped every damn tooth off a 45deg gear in the box. Best pasta I've ever eaten!!!
I cleaned the gear box out and ordered new gears, gasket, and a ring. I'm putting it back together as soon as the grease comes in. I'm not sure how I'll make homemade pasta next time though.