Gear Shaping Machine
A gear shaping machine is a tool for forming, (or milling), the teeth of internal or external gears. Toothed wheels or cogs are called gears and are responsible for transferring motion and energy from one source to another, changing speed of rotation, and regulating the amount of torque available to the final rotating shaft.
This transfer uses a positive form of drive which meshes two or more gears together. There are several advantages of this type of drive over using belts or chains to link up with the next drive wheel.
The close proximity of these gears requires less space and parts breakdown is practically impossible, (except in the case of extreme speed or heat).
Gear Shaping Machine = High Level of Precision
The greatest advantage is the high level of precision built into the range of motion. Capabilities include applications where this is a critical issue. Properly milled gears allow no loss or gain of tolerance through broken links or stretching of belts.
Shaped like a gear, the cutting tool must have the same pitch as the gear being cut. The cutting tool is shaped like the gear that is being cut and also has the same pitch.
For this to be done right there must be less cutting teeth than that of the gear to be cut for internal gears. For external gears the number of teeth on the gear shaper cutters are limited only by the size of the gear shaping machine.
The shaping deals with the cutter contacting the part on the forward stroke and pulling away from the part on the return stroke, (similar to a hand held wood planer).
Gear Shaping Machine for making Teeth
The blank For larger gears are usually gashed to a rough shape to make shaping easier. Strictly speaking, a gear shaping machine is used for making teeth of internal gears, (as in the teeth located on the inside of a ring).
For many of these gears a blank piece of stock is shaped and drilled out in the rough shape of the item to make the actual cutting easier.
The machine used to make external teeth, is called a gear hobbing machine. The motion of the cutting process is the same as the shaper cutter.
The concept of gears and cogs is hundreds of years old and was used in many simple and some complicated machines. We’ve all seen pictures of windmills that were the machines used in Northern Europe to pump water, grind wheat and grain, and several other mechanical processes that required a rotating shaft.
Made from hard woods, the gears and cogs had to be maintained and lubricated constantly to ensure that they wouldn’t break down.
Watches weren’t always digital. Even those powered by tiny batteries today have many cogs and gears in them. The original wind up watches of old were engineering wonders that required such fine tolerances in their construction that they would keep perfect time. All handmade, they were finely crafted using hand tools because the metal parts were small and workable.
As machines got larger, so did their gears. Metal replaced wood as the technology allowed, which required an advancement of the manufacturing methods, which in turn brought us to today’s massive gear cutting capability.
A manufacturing company profile will usually include a gear cutting department or retaining a custom manufacturer that deals with cutting services. A gear shaping machine is but one piece of the technology that has developed to fill the needs of today’s world.
Topic: Gear Shaping Machine