48DP gear cutters needed 14-1/2PA, no 4 and no 8

Edited By TiddlerTad on 18/06/2022 09:38:47

HPC sell a full range of DP48 gears readymade if you wanted to go that route. Not as much fun but maybe easier?

Hopper,

HPC gears will all be to 20 degrees PA and whilst they will mesh with the others, life of the gears thus meshed in service will be short

Regards

Brian

Yes you have to make them all 20DP. Still might be cheaper than importing cutters.

Any reason for not using 20 deg gears?. They are stronger and tooling is more commonly available.

Make your own cutters by the button method?

Making gear cutters isn't difficult and you can make them using a mill, a vice and a tapered drill (centre drill)

Making gear cutters and cutting gears

Great video. Thanks for that.

For a light-duty application, depending how close the desired tooth count is to that of the cutters that you have, using those will make a pair of gears that mesh and run together acceptably.

For example if you need say, a pair of timing gears for a model engine, using a '5' cutter to make a 30-tooth instead of a '4', and '8' to make a 15-tooth pinion instead of a '7' is probably a realistic option..

..dependent on the sizes / desired clearance you may need to slightly adjust the centre distance..

I wouldn't use this method for a timepiece or power transmission, but for certain applications it will work and the results can be surprisingly good - involute cutters are a very loose approximation in any case.

If you want to try out the cutters that you do have, it's probably worth making a 'trial' pair in some easily cut material like brass, alu, or even acrylic, and seeing how they mesh..