[Andy Brockway]

Originally Posted by asid61

As a student machinist for my team, I would recommend against making gears if you can avoid it at all. Indexing and cutting 2-3 times per tooth takes a very long time, not to mention all the work of taking a vise off the table for an indexing head or rotary table and centering everything. If you have the resources, go for it, but personally I can think of few situations where you would really want to do that (a 26t or 16t gear being those few situations ). I've designed swerve drives that can be manually machined, but not ones that you would really want to.

Buying spur gear stock or something similar would be good for making many custom gears.

I also do not recommend machining your own gears unless you have the time. I have been using Martin spur gears and modifying the hubs as needed. They come in almost every gear size and are available on line and from McMaster.