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Freewheeling, po’ boy, hobbing.
I have never cut a gear before. This is my first try in aluminum. Although I bought a few sets of
“Chinese” gear cutters, I have never used them. I have an indexer. I have watched videos
about how to do it. But, being lazy, I always found it faster and cheaper to buy the gears I
needed.
Nevertheless, I have always wanted to cut some gears. I got this idea from watching
videos of people using a tap to make worm gears, so I bought myself a hob to try out this idea.
As you can see, I made the gear very wide to leave room
for errors and experimenting. The leading edge was eaten off trying to get
the hob to start the gear spinning. Furthermore, a wide gear can be cut into pieces and used to
make several gears later.
Here's a video of what I did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqL3...ature=youtu.be
It seems the secret to this “freewheeling hobbing” here is to have your “gear” completely
freewheeling. I mean really freewheeling. In this case, I reamed
the aluminum gear .001 oversized and put it on a .25” shaft with plenty of oil. I really think it
needs a design so it can run on some bearings to make it turn extremely easily.
In the future, to get a better start and not bugger up the leading edge, I would try leaving
the mill off, putting some pressure on the gear with the hob, and then
start the mill with the two “engaged.” This process is no doubt going to take some time to
perfect.
If you had a variable speed mill, and could start extremely slowly, it would work better I believe.
What looks like chatter between the teeth is not chatter. I moved the hob into the piece in
spurts and
this left these marks. This is just an experimental piece and I was in a bit of a hurry. It seems
that better results could be obtained moving into the gear just a few thousandths at a time.
This would take patience, but on a thinner gear, not that much time would be involved.
I am obviously not a pro, just a hobbyist. Disclaimer, please don’t complain about the dirty mill.
I’ve been using it for a five day project.
I have never cut a gear before. This is my first try in aluminum. Although I bought a few sets of
“Chinese” gear cutters, I have never used them. I have an indexer. I have watched videos
about how to do it. But, being lazy, I always found it faster and cheaper to buy the gears I
needed.
Nevertheless, I have always wanted to cut some gears. I got this idea from watching
videos of people using a tap to make worm gears, so I bought myself a hob to try out this idea.
As you can see, I made the gear very wide to leave room
for errors and experimenting. The leading edge was eaten off trying to get
the hob to start the gear spinning. Furthermore, a wide gear can be cut into pieces and used to
make several gears later.
Here's a video of what I did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqL3...ature=youtu.be
It seems the secret to this “freewheeling hobbing” here is to have your “gear” completely
freewheeling. I mean really freewheeling. In this case, I reamed
the aluminum gear .001 oversized and put it on a .25” shaft with plenty of oil. I really think it
needs a design so it can run on some bearings to make it turn extremely easily.
In the future, to get a better start and not bugger up the leading edge, I would try leaving
the mill off, putting some pressure on the gear with the hob, and then
start the mill with the two “engaged.” This process is no doubt going to take some time to
perfect.
If you had a variable speed mill, and could start extremely slowly, it would work better I believe.
What looks like chatter between the teeth is not chatter. I moved the hob into the piece in
spurts and
this left these marks. This is just an experimental piece and I was in a bit of a hurry. It seems
that better results could be obtained moving into the gear just a few thousandths at a time.
This would take patience, but on a thinner gear, not that much time would be involved.
I am obviously not a pro, just a hobbyist. Disclaimer, please don’t complain about the dirty mill.
I’ve been using it for a five day project.
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