Bantam Gears

I'm after some gears to complete the set for my lathe 36, 49,39,57,69 I can only find one of them and there a bit pricy, has any one come up with a way of cutting the spline in the centre of the gears, I ask because I have a set of gear cutters to make my own, but I don't have a way to cut the inner splines, I thought about making the gears and pinning them to one of my other gears, what does the panel think good idea or not.

Regards Alan.

Have a search, John Stevenson posted about cutting suitable splines. May be in the Bodgers Lodge thread.

Alan.

I used a slotting head and rotary table on a Victoria mill for a Bantam gear.

Emgee

If you are not a perfectionist you can make a plain hole, cut one or two keyways and file a key to match the spline if you don't know the details of the spline to machine it. I imagine if it is a standard spline so perhaps details are in Machinery Handbook.

I you have room to put a second gear on to attach the new one too you could also make a bush onto which the gear keys in simpler manner, and the bush grips the splines with brass screws to avoid damage.

I'm guessing the OP is looking for how to get by without a precision broach or a carefully ground slotting cutter.

Edited By Bazyle on 12/10/2015 20:43:21

Have done similar by careful selection of drills to clean out most of the metal for the spline spaces before removing the centre bore and squaring out the corners using the mill, or drill, quill slotter fashion with the spindle stationary. Final clean up to fit with file(s). Two small drills to define the corners and a lager one to remove most of the space worked for me. For this sort of relatively light duty, I assume these are extra gears to extend the screwcutting range, its safe to take a few liberties with fit. If the centre bore is accurate the gear will sit cleanly on the shaft so a bit of clearance at the tip of the splines is OK. If you set up first with a master and note the settings before doing the slotting bit its not that hard to get adequate engagement on the spline sides.

Tedious and certainly a shut the door and put up the Danger - Model Engineer at Work - Don't Disturb sign tho'. I only had two to do and that was quite enough thank you. Worth a measure up and investigation to see if matching splined sleeves can be got reasonably priced from outside suppliers. I recall hearing of a similar spline matching problem deep inside a lathe (Holbrook I think) being fixed with a standard splined sleeve from an agricultural engineering supply place for around a tenner. HPC and other "proper" engineering suppliers seem to want £100 upwards for precision splined bushes which isn't viable.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 12/10/2015 21:32:29

This post covers the splines.

**LINK**

John S.

Thanks chaps good information, I have been thinking about it but l don't feel it's something I could do? Not enough experiance gained at the moment, also I don't have the gear to do it any way, I live near Lincoln is there any one near to me I could visit with the gear to do it? I'm confident in all the aspects of making the gears apart from the splines, if not I may look in to pinning them to exsisting gears I have, for me that would seam the easy way to go, thanks again for the advice chaps it's much appreciated.

Alan.

Alan,

Is Nottingham too far ?

Hi Alan,

Firstly I must say that I am a dealer. I have four of the five gears you are looking for (36, 49, 57 and 69). These are used original Colchester parts.

If you're interested send me a PM and I'll give you my contact details.

Jim