Making Gears From Scratch
G'day everyone,
Today I will be making some basic spur gears from scratch. I have wanted to make gears for a very long time, and I just didn't have the equipment to do so, until now. I recently purchased a set of module 1 gear cutters, and scored a great deal on a dividing head (BS - 0 model) in order to make this video.
I recently snapped a gear on the mini lathe gear train banjo, and a good first project would be to make a replacement. I will also be testing out some new material that I recently picked up, some 12L14 leaded steel which should be better to machine, and some 2011 Free Machining Aluminum.
I hope you enjoy the video, cheers.
Lathe: Sieg C3 7x14 Mini Metal Lathe
Mill: Sieg X2.7L
Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction
1:09 - Gear Cutter Set
2:24 - Making A Gear Cutter Arbor
7:34 - Dividing Head
8:24 - Making A gear Blank And Arbor
9:30 - Cutting A 35 Tooth Module 1 Gear
#machining #DIY #workshop
In the beginning, love it. "The cost of metal gears is very reasonable...so I bought the tools to make them instead"
Make or buy analysis: Make EVERYTHING 😀 ... except for the tools themselves.
I also offer financial advice if anyone is interested :)
Consider it learning time for when you need to make a gear that will not be cheap or easy to find. It is best to learn on parts that are not critical.
@@artisanmakes You know, if you wanted to, you could sell reasonably priced gears on ebay now that you have the tools to make them.
It is better to buy tools to make tools than buying the tools made, trust me you learn alot and save alot by buying tools to make them
Here I was proud of making a 520 chain sprocket with a grinder a Dremel a hand file set and a drill. Took me like 3.5 hrs to make but it lasted on my dirt bike for 2years of hard daily trail riding.
thats awesome!
I'm watching your channel for 3 evenings straight and have no idea how this channel doesn't have much more viewers. Once the youtube algorithm picks up on this channel, that will change, I guess. You are doing a lot of projects that are useful and affordable for hobbyists. You have quite a few inspiring videos. Thanks for that!
Every single subscription counts, and we are here aren’t we. His channel is gradually growing.
Thanks for sharing a very informative vid. It's always better to make it yourself whenever possible. Having control over the materials used makes a huge difference at times.
80 Gears?...Pfft!...…you'll knock that over on a Saturday! the biggest question becomes how many gears do you have you can replace?...Lathe ,mill, coffee machine, dishwasher....etc... Awesome to see someone explaining it is not the convenience of buying gears but the satisfaction of making your own. Keep up the good work.....Long live the hacksaw!
Don't forget that every gear needs one or two back ups just in case :)
Loved the comment at the end about tricking yourself into believing you’re saving money. Found your channel a few months ago and immediately subscribed. Great videos!! Always look forward to your releases.
Wonderful work, wonderful tools, wonderful passion... 👏👏👏 Thanks, whish you all the best.
Great video. Looking forward to see what other projects that will use gears you have created.
Nice demonstration of cutting gears. Can't wait to do this myself!
Great little project dude. Making gears is on my list of projects too just getting around to purchasing the dividing head. Really enjoyed and well executed.
Nice work , good watch , look forward to next one , thanks for sharing 👌🏼
Always look forward to your videos. So informational!
Having worked in the public sector for 41 years and now retired, I can most certainly understand spending many dollars to save a few. I do it myself on occasion, depending on what I want to purchase. Subscribed.
Pretty much the definition of hobby machining :) cheers
This Old Tony did a great explanation video of module involute gear geometry and how these cutters cut (more or less) the correct involute.
That's certainly a video I would recommend too, a great watch indeed.
Loved the video. i've had aluminum gears on my south bend 9c for years trick i learned from one of your countryman Rob from Xynudu! thanks again for a great video
Another enjoyable educational video, thank you, well done! cheers
None of are here because we wanted the cheap route. Or the easy route. Or the logical route... Were here because we make stuff! Haha You delivered that line perfectly.
Cool project and nicely done! Why purchasing a full set of metal gears when you can have just the gear cutters for double the price :D Like that ! ;)
first time iv seen this channel made me laugh and subscribed straight up as well as being Aussie
yep - I always learn something when I watch your content 👍😎👍
Nice work on the gear cutting.
nice project - if we wanted to save money we wouldn't have a hobby lathe :)
Is that the way that works? ^_^ Regrettably this is how it tends to work in woodworking (furniture making) too. And I had such grand plans!
excellent innovation ❤❤
Love it. I have the same dividing head, haven’t used it yet. This tutorial helped.
Cheers,.hope it all goes well
Great video and I'm sure we all hate buying parts that we can make ourselves for 3 times the time and money. Only thing I seem to have missed is how you did the keyway - it's what I am trying to figure out how to do soon on my gears
Excellent job man,
nicely done and explained
One possible project(which I would love to see a video of) would be to find a way to flange a permanent fixture to the gear train in order to fit bigger (or more, for that matter) gears and slow down the powerfeed to more managable speeds.
I wanted to just say that I have watched lots of your videos and have really enjoyed them (despite not having a lathe.)
I love it! Eighty or so gears. It sounds like your decision making process aligns with mine...... 😄 haha.
Great video! Thanks mate!
For just a little bit more, you can make it yourself. But you learn something along the way, and you build up your library of tools. Pretty soon, you can make things that are just not available.
Really well done.
Hi, well done and thanks for sharing your interesting video
Thanks for making the video and sharing. I'm on the same pathway myself. My Chinese Mini Lathe came with a metric lead screw and none of the change gears needed for cutting imperial threads with any degree of accurate pitch. I have the same dividing head that you do. I'll be able to make all the needed gears except for a 57 tooth gear with the dividing head and dividing plates as they stand. I figured I could create a replacement direct dividing plate, replace the existing geared indexing pin with the pin ground down to 0.125. I would create the plate in the mill using my DRO to make the hole circle.
i had the same problem needed 67 tooth gear to turn 16 TPI well 67 is a prime number so i needed to make a 67 hole dividing plate to make the gear felt like i was chasing my tail
Or 11 teeth….
You know the definition of a machinist? “Someone who buys thousands of dollars worth of machinery for making dollars worths of parts”. 😂 And my addition to that is “…and is quite happy to do so.”. In short: not the cheapest or fastest option but certainly the most satisfying. And a flexible one too as you are now able to make just about any gear you may ever need. 👍
Theres the other one the guy everyone gives things because they know he will use....hence my garage and forty seven years in business
Got a good chuckle out of "As long as I make 80 gears..." You'll never hear me say you can't spend money or time to make something just because you had to had to and for no other reason. :)
NICE JOB!
Super! Thank you very much!
Nice work, dividing head seems like good value. Learnt about module gears thanks. Let us know when you get to 80.
For light cuts like you usually have to take, give some aluminum inserts a try. They're super cheap, sharp as a cats claw and work really well on steel. - No, you can't take 70 though depth cuts with them, even on big machines, but they work great for the type of work you do - and require a lot less cutting pressure.
Very interesting.
Pretty cool!
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching, cheers
G'day! I love how your break-even point for this is 80 or so gears :-))) As usual I enjoyed what you were doing, but also your great camera work and narration. BTW I'm not a machinist but my goodness, that dividing head...
that's the first time I've seen a new dividing head. Every other one I've seen looks 40 or so years old.
informativ. Nice !
Nice! I got tired of swapping the fiddly gears on my mini though and converted to an ELS (Electronic Lead Screw). It's so handy to change from roughing, threading or finishing with push of some buttons in seconds instead of several minutes to with each gear change. If you're like me and constantly need to change the gears to go from different operations consider an ELS.
I have considered that swap before too, though I rarely use the leadscrew for anything so it wouldn't benefit me too much. Cheers
Wow you got that dividing head setup at a good price.
Never understood machinist logic: convincing himself that 60 bucks is A LOT, spending 300 bucks, and sleeping well after all... sounds reasonable :D Nice video again!
The money spent on the tooling can be recouped many times over.
Wouldnt be a hobby if it made financial sense. In all seriousness the dividing head will serve other purposes, such as quick indexing, and I need it for a replacement spline shaft I need to make. Cheers
My boy: Cutting gears! Also my boy: using a hack saw lol
This reminds Me of when This Old Tony did EXACTLY the same operation, just for one of the bigger gears. Seems these things love blowing gears.
You really do a great job with these machining videos. No excess talking in front of the camera like other annoying American machinist channels. No frequent Patreon links to "support my channel" and give me free money B.S... I'm so tired of that crap on those channels that I've unsubscribed from. Just the down and dirty work with excellent filming, commentary and editing. Keep up the great work.
It's funny how they're are so many stupid people that think America=United States, my guess is that you're one of them ;) 😉
I've been following your channel for quite a few videos now and I really like your style. You're doing a great job. To put the quality of your parts to the next level, I highly recommend you to be even more thorough with deburring. There are good reasons for always deburring edges: 1. Safety. We all know that burrs can leave nasty scars not only to the machinist, but also to the person fixing/upgrading/cleaning things someday down the road. Or even harm customers, which professionals should by all means try to avoid. 2. Accuracy. Clamping a bolt down on a burr around the hole might hold up well initially. But on ratteling machinery or any moving device, the burr may wear quickly and the connection comes lose again and again. 3. Appearance. A small machined chamfer on all edges just look so nice and clean and transport a first hint on high quality. If you really want to put your deburring job to the test, use a cotton rag and lightly drag it over all the edges of the part. If it catches there is still room for an even smoother finish. I hope this is of some value. Thanks for sharing and all the effort you put in your videos, Artisan. Looking forward to upcoming projects
Thankyou for the information, it is certainly helpful. This was my first time making gears outside of 3D printing some and doing theory in engineering class. I'll make sure to refer back to this next time I'm making gears, Cheers.
Keep it up.
Beautiful work!!
Nice work! :)
Thankyou. Cheers
Is it about saving money? Is it? Never for me. It's about looking at something you use and knowing that you made it.
Great info there. Thank you. So where and how can I get that Engineering Black Book Please.?
Very good job next video metal gear machine lathe projeck
Subscribing straightway
Excellent video as usual, really hoping you were going to make the dividing head yourself, that's what is holding me back from my own gears
I would love to, but realistically I'd need a universal dividing head (or equivalent) to hob out the worm gear to make the dividing head
Having the same setup I first added a stepper motor replacing the indexing disk to reduce monkey work rotating the handle and then replaced this horrible manual gearbox with an electronic one based on a stepper motor and a rotary encoder. Now I'm happy and can share the sources if anyone wants to repeat them.
great video. How did you cut the keyway in the gears bore?
It's a crime this channel has under 100k subs.
nice video. Now if you plan to make many gears, i recommend that convert dividing head to arduino powered stepper motor drive, it will be much easier, and less possibility for errors in dividing. Thanks for sharing...
I am thinking of something like that too, but mostly because there are gears I can't cut with this using the conventional dividing plates, such as a 101 tooth gear for example. Cheers
+1 for that, worth it.
@@artisanmakes you are right. That is actually the reason why i did it so i can easily make gears on any number of teeth, and avoid differential dividing add on to the dividing head...
lmao the last bit
I think the real show here is making it on this lathe
I've cut many gears using hand ground profiled 2 flute end mills.....the gear form for the cutter was viewed using a modified slide projector to project the form of the cutter onto a wall 4 metres away against a hand drawn projection chart.
Really interesting to hear. I've seen similar methods used for grinding tools but I've never done it myself. I was actually looking for involute end mill shaped cutters and was really surprised that they aren't commercially sold. Cheers
@@artisanmakes An end mill per se is quite easy to make......when I was just out of school I bought a small piece of crap lathe and made cutters from high carbon or silver steel and hardened and tempered them myself with an alcohol torch. For milling, the cutters were of the flat 2 cutting edge type, hand cut, hardened and tempered. Profiled cutters for gear cutting were also flat 2 cutting edge type and later I used broken centre drills for the blanks (no hardening required) with the profile hand ground on a bench grinder as previously said..........cutting racks with just a 29 deg angle is the easiest.
A quick and dirty trick to cut seldom used imperial threads (27TPI) on a mini lathe ist to print the required change-gear on an 3D printer. Did work fine, but i guess not for a long time. Milling gears is on my to do list. I don't have a dividing plate for my rotary table, but I am sure a 3D printed dividing plate will work fine.
Even quicker and dirtier way to make a dividing plate; Print a paper sticker label on a bubblejet printer and glue it on your metal stock, then centre punch and drill the dividing plate on a drill press. The tiny position errors in the holes won't matter for simple gear cutting because they are reduced 90:1 By the rotary table worm drive.
Dude you are just torturing me with that hacksaw cutting that chunk of round stock😩🤣 please please buy yourself a bandsaw
Lol. Love your tongue in cheek comment about roi if 80 gears. Lol. All us hobby machinists try to justify the spend somehow. Lol.
Lol! That's how it always starts! " dont buy that! I can buy the tools and make it myself for no more than double that price !"
Great fun video! 👍 A couple of points; Why use a 49 hole plate and do 7/49ths when you could have used a 21 hole plate and used 3/21 ? Much easier to count and going with the simplest plate is usually the best. And, gears only need an accurate tooth profile if you will be running them at high speeds and high power transmission levels. The accurate tooth profile reduces friction, heat buildup etc. For your case the gears are very low speed, very low power transmission and very infrequent use. You could have cut any dodgy "tooth shaped" cutter out of HSS and got a result that was totally acceptable. Anyway, just some thoughts, great channel by the way. 🙂
To be quite honest I didn't notice the 21 hole division table below it, the 49 one was above it and that's what I read first. I wasn't really expecting there to be 2 rows dedicated to 35 tooth indexing and only noticed after I cut the gear :) As for cutting my own gear cutter, I was tempted to make a fly cutter tool of some sort, but these gear cutters were on sale (normally I would pay $140 for the set) so I opted for them. If I end up cutting another gear module, or Diametral or cycloidal I will probably make my own cutter. Cheers.
Wanna try that out from steel and case harden them.
I was curious to watch your video as i have a similar video posted on my channel on Cutting Gears with a Rotary Table. I mostly decided to do it with a Rotary Table because it would help those who could justify buying a Rotary Table but not have much use for a Dividing Head. Enjoyed watching the video and wish you all the best with your channel. Peter 👍
Should check out Click Spring's videos on making tools. He goes into making your own gear cutters and how to make the tools to make those gear cutters 😁
I’m aware of those, I think it’s a bit unnecessary to to make the gear cutters themselves unless it’s cycloidal like he’s doing. Cheers
When you're cutting the aluminum gear at around 10:35 are you jjst supporting the cut with the socket cap bolt in the tail stock? Surely that can't be the best?
A small dab of CA glue and a small washer held the part in place without too much issue, cheers
The thing is whats the point of having the machinery if you're not going to use it. Its a bit of a learning exercise too so great job. You never know when you might need some new gears and there could be a part shortage.
Nice work not sure if you should be climb cutting those gears though. Thats kinda asking for trouble especially on such a small mill
Doesn't cause any issues on aluminium and I get a much better cut, I'll have to flip the cutter for when I do steel gears
Its not about the price or haste of result, it's the journey
how did you cut the key way in the gear?
From scratch? Perhaps next time you can show us your steel forge from where you formed your rod.
Is there any way to get enough precision using encoders and a proper dc motor + electronics to cut gears using just the lathe motor or is a dividing head strictly necessary?
Yes there is - See James' set of videos - It's not inexpensive either. First video in series. kzhead.info/sun/ebisaauxnoSHYI0/bejne.html
Theoretically, if you can fit a gear in the back of the headstock and then add a worm gear + plus a (homemade, probably; possible to make when the gears are fitted) dividing plate, cutting with a milling attachment, then there is a good chance it would work. With the price of dividing heads and small chucks, it is up to you if that is worth it. A proper stepper or servo motor has an easier time dividing then a DC
Why you cut the stocks with a hand saw? An angle grinder would do it a lot faster. But maybe there is a reason i'm missing
Hi I am about to cut some mod 1 gear. I have some questions about gear cutting. What RPM did you use? Did you go full depth of cut? (I can see you did full depth initially.) Does climb milling cause vibration? My setup can not do conventional milling. I have a x2.7 mill and am trying to do a 63 tooth gear in aluminium. Thanks
this would be so useful if i had one of these right now a lathe and those gear making cutters..i have a gear i need made for a snowblower but its discontinued..its so frustrating and annoying any place aorund here that would cut it charges at least 150 dollars just to cut the gear baseline and everythign else its like 200 bucks..at that price i can probably buy all teh equiptment and do it myself which id rather do anyway but geez..nothign seems to be reasonably priced anymore such stupid costs for things.
What rapm are you using when turning the steel with the carbide tool?
Can't remember off the top of my head but it's around 800 or so. These inserts have a decent working range
@artisan makes.... when are you going to build a power hacksaw? or buy a band saw?
With you manually turning the gear like that isnt there a chance of a loss of position? Can it lock in place after you've moved it?
You only turn forward which I think would help with backlash. Plus the head has a pin that locks into those holes for each cut
That is what the holes in the division plate is for. The turning handle doubles as a pin to lock it in place.
Great video. Have you tried to make steel gears?
This was literally my first gear that I made, so I have only since done a few in aluminium. I will be planning on doing some steel ones soon, though I don't have any suitable stock on hand, Cheers.
why you need to spray water ?
Which cutter machine
Mate, your an aussie (therefore local to me) and your constant use of a hacksaw kills me. Can I send you a cheapy angle grinder?
Do you find the self centering 4 jaw is better than the 3, or is that just what you happen to have?
I had to buy the 4 jaw scroll.chuck for a previous project where I had to turn a lot of square stock of various sizes into round stock and it was much faster than a independent 4 jaw. I just keep it on because it's a much better quality chuck than the 3 jaw the lathe comes with. Plus 4 points of contact is better than 3. Cheers
The issue to be aware of with scroll chucks that have four or more jaws is they are over-determined. So some jaws may be tight while others remain loose. This can't happen on a 3 jaw because no subset of jaws can clamp the material.
One thing you didn't mention was the depth of the cut.
Can someone please describe how the slot (keyway?) was cut into the inside of the gear?
Just hand filed it in, camera was dead when I went to do it, cheers
If a keyway cutter isn't available, you can pick up on the centerline of the bore, plunge in with an endmill that has a diameter equal to the key's width, then file the corners square
Great video What book were you refer to? Please talk about the scamming you referred to in a previous comment reply
That is the machinist blackbook, super useful and handy. It was a gift but they well for around $50 and contain a good deal of workshop information. The vendor I purchased from is called Vevor on AliExpress. The dividing head was on sale and after purchasing it they demanded I pay more money, so I had to dispute the sale to actually get the product shipped. It was a gamble but in the end I got the diving head.
@@artisanmakes I bought a 24V power supply off aliexpress, it didnot turn up, I tried to dispute but aliexpress would not accept the dispute for another month after the latest delivery date, which ended up about one or two days before the dispute deadline. The vendor just bullshited along trying to run the clock down and aliexpress seem to be part of the delaying process. In the end I got refund but with a very bad feeling like its just one big scam. Now im getting emails from ali inviting me back that they miss me...
Do you ever make spiral bevel gears?
A basic bs 0 dividing head like this can not make spiral features. The more expensive BS 2 models have a gear train you can attach to the table leadscrew that will rotate the dividing head as the table moves, so you are able to cut a spiral. Though I'm sure it wouldnt be too hard to make my own attachment, or rig one up with a stepper motor, Cheers.
Unless gears are not very small one or two gear cutters is enough for plastic gears. It is also possible to make cutters, any mild steel will cut plastic well. I made full set of gears for my lathe, all from scratch. Dividing plate, gear cutter, arbor for the cutter, lathe carriage attachment for drill to use it as a mill. (And MT adapter for drill chuck to be able to make arbor). That is about all you need to cut (plastic) gears. I don't see much benefit to make gears from aluminium
I've heard something similar, though I remember that number being three gear cutters, from memory of you want to cut small pinions it's good to have a low tooth cutter, though I could be misremembering that. Funnily enough when I used to cut acrylic exclusively, I had to grind up some custom tools from mild. They actually worked pretty well, although it was cold rolled. Cheers
At ~10.33 3 or 4 teeth are shown. But one doesn't seem to have the same thickness as the others? 🤔 Btw, I see we have different understand on what a good chip is 😁😁
I had to do a double take too when I saw that, it was just the lighting and the camera angle, guess it's all relative too, a good chip on a mini lathe vs a bigger lathe
80? that's not bad...I would need to factor in the cost of a mill too... :(