A1 - beginning gear cutting

Copyright 2011 by James P. Riser

The largest gear in this project (2 3/4" diameter blank) got mounted in a pot chuck for center drilling.

This hole drilling leaves a bur on the backside of the blank which must be removed. I do this by gently touching a center drill to the swiftly spinning brass disc. The bur pops off as a ring (seen on the drill tip). After this, the blank is ready to have teeth cut.

The brass blanks are next stacked (3 hign) for a quick notching by the fly cutter.

This notch will come in handy later when centering the actual wheel cutter.

In order to mount the wheel cutter, the cutter spindle must be removed from the cutting frame of the wheel engine.

The left end is loosened to accept the cutter.

The correct wheel cutter for the module I need on this project is mounted onto the cutter spindle. The 60 degree pivot bearing for this spindle may be seen at the end of the axle.

 

The previously made notch in the gear blank is used to center the cutter with the axis of the wheel engine itself. This is critical or the gear teeth will be crooked/off center. To do this centering, the entire cutting frame is slid then locked into position.

 

Adjusting the cutting frame causes the drive belt to go out of alignment. If this is not fixed, the belt will jump the pulleys. Fortunately the wheel engine was designed to slide the motor back and forth to make this adjustment. The picture on the right below shows the belt realigned.

 

The cutting of the teeth can now be started. In cutting these teeth the cutting frame with its spinning arbor/cutter may be raised and lowered, as well as, moved in for deeper cuts.

 

 

Here is a closeup of the teeth being cut into the three .064" thick brass discs.

 

Below is a series of progress pictures of the gear cutting.

 

 

This is the shape of the gear teeth.

 

Here is another view of the teeth.

 

800 teeth later ... I am making parts for several items.

The second wheel (smaller and with less teeth) was cut in the same manner.

I needed to cut 75 teeth on this wheel and switched index plates.

 

The brass blanks were prepared as shown for the barrel wheel.

 

Cutting was then started.

 

The completed second wheels look like this.

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