On Wed, 2009-05-13 at 18:17 +0200, Peter blodow wrote: > Hello Kirk, > I wonder how much fuss you guys are making about gear cutting. ... snip > I managed to buy module 0.5 to 2 sets of 8 cutters each, in beautiful > wooden boxes, almost unused, from a machine factory which had to move > out of the town, for 50 Euros. Just keep looking! Large factories > don't use this method of gear making because it takes longer than > hobbing. Take to the guys at their coffee break. Look into ebay, not > only in ebay.com for the US, but for instance at ebay.de or ebay.at. > Don't be afraid of eastern European dealers, they need to make money > just as we all and are as honest as we all are. :-)) There seems to be > a lot of material the communist era has left which is now being > socialized by private hands. > > Best regards > Peter Blodow > > PS: Don't get me wrong: I studied physics and have been working in a > research company for 34 years, so I know when to use complicated > theory, but from my own private work I know when not...
Thanks for the eBay hints. I wonder if eBay will some day have the clout to create a universal world-wide shipping system, no goofy tariffs, customs and other social swarf? So far, the gear cutters I have found have been expensive and limited. Using a rack cutter is one option, but then you need to know the ins and outs of the gear profiles to make the setup, and would require a rotary axis, which I am only lusting over at this point. I plan on making a few gears of very different forms each year, so investing in expensive and limited tooling, doesn't seem to make sense. A new rack cutter from MSCDirect cost about the same as a pair of gears from Mcmaster, if they happen to have the size I need. For the particular gear set I need now, I can make them from sheet material and they can be fairly large, so I can use a small end mill to cut the gear, but again this requires me to know the details of the gear tooth form. Finally, I enjoy learning about gear details, playing with math, plus some of what I have learned will be handy in other areas. If I had my production hat on, I would certainly be taking a different approach. -- Kirk Wallace http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/index.html California, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
