Cutting Tetrix gears

[Forhire]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

"The Home Shop Machinest" ran some articles on using slitting saws on small CNC Sherline size tools to make aluminum gears. I can dig out issue numbers if someone wants.

If one has an old metal shaper one can also make a carbide cutter for gear teeth for the clapper. Course shappers only cut on the forward stroke so...dead simple tooling...but you pay for it in 40% more cutting time.

It sounds like an interesting read.

I've cut a few gears using a hand ground fly cutter also.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Forhire

It sounds like an interesting read.

I've cut a few gears using a hand ground fly cutter also.

Article by Jim Hansen, June/July 2009, Volume 22, Number 3, page 4 also made cover. "Machinist Workshop" magazine uses custom manual indexer plate on Sherline headstock with stock Sherline 5400 turning slitting saw.

Marsh Collins did a long article on building a metal shaper which for me is on page 110 of "Projects 8, The Home Shop Machinist" hardcover. A bigger shaper than the hobby size one from the link provided earlier to Martin Model. It is attractive to me to use just a shaper to make gears because it is very predictable in operation and I make so few. Hobber costs add up.

There are plenty of tips in "Tabletop Machining":
https://www.amazon.com/Tabletop-Mach.../dp/0966543300
Page 226 for example they cut a helical gear.

The Sherline 8700 stepper driver rotary table manual has a section on gear cutting.

Now that I scrounged the stuff in grabbing radius .

Here is a HSS bar in a fly cutter body using a 4th axis on a desktop mill to make a replacment gear:
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist....ead.php?t=7246
Keep in mind if you do that you better be darn sure the fly cutter body is mounted firmly. The link above is a manual indexer but that technique works on a CNC 4th axis as well.

Will update when I get to my library later...

[Forhire]

Last fall we downloaded the demo of Gearotic http://www.gearotic.com/ and used it to verify the Tetrix gears we made but didn't really spend a lot of time using it. I've been looking at some of the videos and it does a lot of stuff I didn't realize it does. You can post 4th axis milling code and cut gears using standard endmills. I think we'll play with this some more in the fall.

Anyone using Gearotic for milling gears? How about ratchets?

Gearotic4th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv77x7I1qQs

I think this is the current Gearotic website. It has a lot more information.
http://www.gear2motion.com/

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Forhire

Last fall we downloaded the demo of Gearotic http://www.gearotic.com/ and used it to verify the Tetrix gears we made but didn't really spend a lot of time using it. I've been looking at some of the videos and it does a lot of stuff I didn't realize it does. You can post 4th axis milling code and cut gears using standard endmills. I think we'll play with this some more in the fall.

Looks like a neat piece of software. What are the limitations of the trial version? The website didn't seem to mention it.

[Forhire]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Looks like a neat piece of software. What are the limitations of the trial version? The website didn't seem to mention it.

I don't think you can export or save in demo mode. I tried to post some g-code and got the license notice. Aside from that everything else appears to function.