This shows the Dore Westbury being stretched (nearly) to the limit on my Little Samson  Second motion gear. I had to hang the gear (and final drive gear which is bigger) over the edge, and then used a clamp to hold the gear against the edge of the table. So the dividing head did the dividing and the table took the cutting thrust. I forget how many cutters I bought to do the full range of gears. 3 I think.

 

There is a driving dog in the arbour by the way.

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 10/12/2009 14:08:48

Hi  words of warning,The majority of gear cutters that you will come across either have a  pressure angle of fourteen and a half degrees or twenty degrees,common practice for at least the last fifty years is to use twenty degrees and usually this is engraved or etched on the gear,a lot of cutters available are unmarked and others have fourteen and a half degrees etched on them and there are still a lot of them around at dealers and auto jumbles,it is of course good practice  to mesh gears which have been cut with cutters having the same pressure angle.So specify when purchasing that cutters must have twenty degrees p/a etched on them,I also understand that a lot of lathe change gears continued to use fourteen and a half p/a long after it went out of common use.when cutting on small lathe/mill set ups it is best to take two cuts on steel or cast on dp gears up to 12 dp.first cut two thirds of gear tooth depth ,second cut one third of depth. 

I,v only cut two or three non critical(for accuracy)gears,I used a fly cutter gound by hand,if that worked OK then the correct cutter would be a peice of cake.Ian S C

Tom my apologies- thats very neat – by how many thou has each tooth been relieved.

Hi Jim,