[EricH]

Originally Posted by pilleya

When only a small number of teeth are removed, there is normally a lot of damage to the other teeth. But this damage doesn't seem that it could be all caused by the normal meshing of the other gear. In this case is it the shrapnel that is the cause of this?

In that case, yes, it would be any remaining bits. You'll also want to check the mating gear(s) for damage, as damage to metal tends to transfer to any metal of similar softness that it hits... I wouldn't be surprised if there was some "hard whacks" causing damage as well.