[Veselin Kolev]

Hm... .028" scares me slightly. The smallest gap ive run between the hub and keyway of a CIM gear is .041", thats the gap you get with a 12 tooth 20DP tooth with a 2MM keyway on the CIM shaft.

Now if its totally necesary for you to use a 17 tooth 32DP on the shaft, and are not willing to make a whole lot of spares, I would make a broach that instead of cutting a keyway, forms the key itself, so you dont need a key on the shaft. Or even better if you have an EDM, just wire burn the sucker.

I dont know if you can weld a key into the keyway to get more material in there without warping the gear, I would not trust my welding on it.

I would go with broaching, that would fix it, and it would actually not take that much time. All you do is cut as much of the pattern out with an end mill at first, then make a broach and slam it in there, of course its a lot more complicated, but you get the idea. It sounds scary, but I've done it before, its not that bad.