Tools to Make Gears on 3+1-Axis Mill or Live Tool Lathe

Hey Y'all,

I'm looking for a good way to make various gears on a 3+1-axis mill or on a live tool lathe.

I manage the engineering fabrication lab at a state university, and our engineering students commonly need to make gears. Straight-toothed spur gears most often, but I also want to be able to make bevel gears, worm years, helical gears, internal gears... Basically anything that students can come up with.

Do you know any good attachments or tools that I could use on the machines I already have?

I should probably get a set of involute cutters. I've also been exploring the use of straight-shank broaching tools with involute-shaped inserts on the Mill and Lathe. Does anyone suggest a good brand or have tips on that? Or have any they're wanting to part with...? ; )

NOTE: I'm not interested in production speed. We often only need to make one or two of a given gear. So as cool as they would be, a skivving or broaching unit for the CNC lathe (for example) are overkill.

UtahTechFabLab said:

Hey Y'all,

I'm looking for a good way to make various gears on a 3+1-axis mill or on a live tool lathe.

Click to expand...

Don't even think it. This is all shit.

If you stick to spur gears, you could get a wire edm but otherwise, for a lab ? Forget it.

And involute cutters are crap. They have a place in the world but it ain't the 'accurate gear dep't'. Or even semi-accurate gear dep't.

Ten grandish would be reasonable for a start point. Otherwise, wire edm maybe. Or use one of the weirdass methods that emulate a Maag. Or even try to profile them with a tiny ball end mill, which takes forever but is okay for one part. Or find a real gear shop to do your occasional work. But kiss it off on the involute cutters and bogus hobbing attachments and the rest of that stuff.

Is this the kind of thing you were talking about as too expensive? They are but I think they are the only way to really get a good gear on a live tool lathe. I guess you could just use a stub arbor and a involute gear cutter but I have never tried it on a lathe.