[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Qbranch

Gears are expensive. Why not make your own?

I'm figuring out how to do it on my CNC. Hopefully I'll have some pretty convincing gears by the end of the summer.

Plus, remember, once I figure out how to make gears, i can make them out of most any material i want (aluminum, titanium, UHMW, lexan )

So i'll report back on CD sometime when i get a convincing gear and probably post a whitepaper and pictures on how to do it.

-Q

After I discovered how difficult and time consuming it is for the average hobbyist machinist to make a gear (and how complex a gear actually is) I gladly decided to purchase them.

This book has a good section on gear making. I wouldn't recommend buying the book, but if you can get your hands on it for an hour or so to read that section it would be worthwhile.

You have a CNC? That's cool. What kind?

How do you plan on cutting the gears? The only way I can imagine to do it on mill is to get some stock set up in a rotary 4th axis and get an involute gear cutter mounted on an arbor and come into it to make the cut and index it the proper amount for the next tooth and so on until you get all of them.