Lasercutting Spur Gears?

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Raul

Lasercutting produces a tapered cut (funnels out as others have called it). I suggest using a wire EDM process for custom gears. Wire EDM can be extremely precise.

Having worked with both laser and waterjet, I'll have to agree with Raul. Both laser and water jet cutters tend to have a kerf (the technical term for the material the saw removes) that gets wider with depth. With the water jet this can be mitigated to some extent by reducing the cutting speed, but it will always be there. Both waterjet and laser are best suited to relatively thin materials.

Wire EDM on the other hand can have a kerf as small as 0.0005" and while the speed of cut is dependent on thickness, the kerf width is not. So you can get some pretty straight polished looking cuts. It is also not terribly expensive and most EDM shops have software that allows you to just tell them the # of teeth, pitch and face width of a gear. They can do the program in a couple of minutes from there. There are a couple of good EDM houses out Sandrag's way but I'm not where I can dig up their names at the moment.