Did you have it in low gear?
That thing is supposed to have 1600lb-ft of torque at 60 rpm so you should have been able to tear the end off your face grooving tool without stalling the machine.
A hint for your toolmaker:
Don't try to feed by hand it is much too jerky and you cannot keep a nice steady feed. Practise using the jogwheel and buttons; one way to get smooth feed by hand is put the jog rate on 0.0001 which means you have to crank the jog wheel fairly fast but also means you can't go too fast and overshoot your end point.
An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.