As the owner of the new gear you can all see Robert was the very talented engineer who was able to help rescue my mill head from the poor state it was in
The metronomic sound of the shaper is very satisfying indeed. Not to mention the gear cutting and arithmetic involved.... Totally looking forward to what you have in mind for your next installment...👍🏻
Thank you. I don't have an in depth machining background either! I was an electronic engineer. The maths isn't that complicated, the system generates an involute curve by the nature of the way it moves. The rest of the maths is just a ratio!
I should have spotted it wasn't 14.5 degrees PA. Fortunately, I had the wisdom to make a spare blank! Oh, it takes a long time to shaper cut gears, it's not something I'll do on a regular basis😁
I think the shaper mod videos showed up. They did not previously. This is an innovative way to cut gears. While gear cutters work, they are not always a precise method. You get screwed by these approx gears when running at higher speeds which demand the involute profile. Fellows did an awsome job in their gear shapers. This approach uses a metal shaper with mods to get that involute. It’s also useful in cutting dual DP gears. Some gears were cut using TWO DPs. One at the top and another at the root. Hardinge change gears are like this.
Thank you. I originally made the fixture to avoid spending money on involute cutters, only to use them once or twice. You're right, the profile should be closer to the ideal than a milling cutter as you have more teeth than the minimum the milling cutter is designed for. In principle, profile shifting is trivial, though I've not tried this. As for dual DP gears, thats not something I've come across or tried (yet?).
Thanks for sharing this series with us! I love that with your setup you only need one cutter for each Pressure Angle/Diametral Pitch combination instead of a set of 8. I understand that you need a fairly large set of gears to generate the correct number of teeth, but theoretically, couldn't those be 3D printed? It would also be interesting to know how much closer to the perfect involute form this method gets you vs. an off the shelf cutter?
@@marcsimonsen1578 Thank you for watching and commenting! It was the simplicity of the cutting tool that led me to make the attachment in the first place. You don't need a vast set of gears, I think I have about 14 including a couple I've made. As you need a universal dividing head for this, they should come with a set of gears (mine was missing a couple). You could buy a cutter and mill a few too. 3D printed gears may work fine, but thats not something I've tried. As for the shape, this technique should produce a "perfect" shape (mechanical limitations apply, obviously) whereas an involute cutter is only correct for the lowest number of teeth in its range ( a 135 to rack cutter has curved flanks, for a rack they should be straight).
@@ThePottingShedWorkshop Thank you for that explanation! I have a decent machine shop, but I lack several critical tools, such as a tool and cutter grinder, shaper, etc. I've been looking for some in my neck of the woods while learning all I can about them. I had heard that you could cut gears on a shaper but had not seen it in practice until you showed us the implementation!
Very nice way to cut a gear! Never thought that it could be done like this. What's your background? Machinist for all your live? Guessing here. Thank you for sharing your nice work! Best! Job
Thanks for the compliment! Total time to cut the gear was 2 to 3 hours I think. 225 thou total depth taken in 5 passes, roughly. 20 teeth, 50? strokes per pass per tooth at 87 strokes per minute gives about 1 hour, not allowing for rewind time, incrementing the tooth, break time to maintain concentration. The video has most of this edited out!
Perhaps gashing the blank on the shaper with a slotting bit would be better for assuring accurate indexing. The only complication I can think of would be changing the slotting bit to the gear cutting bit and assuring the position relative to the work wouldn't change. It just occured to me also that one could theoretically fasten a small grinder to the tool head and grind the teeth on hardened gears with a properly shaped grinding wheel.
You could gash the blank on the shaper. It would be slow though. Look at the keyway cutting, downfeed is about 1 to 2 thou per stroke as its only a little machine. 225 thou depth, 20 teeth, 2 thou per stroke is a lot of strokes at the minimum speed, as theres no auto feed on the tool slide.
Just go back and watch the back catalogue video series on it, Robert deserves far more views on the build of the tooling to feed the UA-cam algorithm 👍
Thanks for encouraging others to watch those videos! You're right, all the info is in part 2 of the series on the gear cutting attachment. It's a bit dry but the maths isnt that complicated.
@@ThePottingShedWorkshop You're more than welcome, I watched the whole series avidly including the mathematics, I found it satisfying that it is more truly an involute than the approximation from a milling gear cutter. It took me back to my Geometric & Eng Drg. A level days back in the 80s doing cam constructions and graphical integration etc.
Enjoyable viewing, especially the hobbing of spur gear in slotter. You do know you could have done the hobbing in the mill. Either gear cutting tool or single point HSS tool in a fly cutter.Just saying. Your arbor would have to be made longer in length to clear er collet head.
Thanks for watching. Whilst you could cut the gear on the mill, it would require an involute cutter of the required DP and PA. A hand ground flycutter bit isn't going to have the same accuracy. Or you could use a hob, but timing the spindle to the rotation of the blank would turn this into a proper gear hobber - watch some of Tom's Rabbit Hole videos where he's done exactly that and its a lot more work. The tool for the shaper is a trapeziod, ie a rack tooth, easy to grind accurately.
probably a stupid question what if you reshape the first gear with the new pressure angle as is? gear cutting is always just an aproximation of an actual shape anyway
@@kokodin5895 If I tried to recut with a 20 deg PA tool there would be very odd shaped teeth, there would be dents in the lower part of the flanks. The trochoid section at the root of the tooth undercuts slightly with 20T and 14.5 deg PA. Your last statement may be true of gears cut with an involute cutter if the number of teeth is greater than the minimum in the range specified for an individual cutter, but it is incorrect for gears cut either with a gear hobber or with the shaper as I do here, as it is cut with a rack tooth shaped tool moved at the correct traversing speed as the gear rotates.
Show the younger generation how to do it "old school". It is simply too easy to do it on a commercial CNC machine using CAD/CAM to do all the thinking work.
@@adrianfernandez1806 Not at all impractical. How would you cut a gear? With a hobber and a gear hob? Fast, practical and expensive. No? How about a mill and an involute cutter? Faster than the shaper and fine if you have the right cutter, but the cheapest cutter I could find for 10DP 20deg was about £60/$80, probably the only time I'll ever cut such a gear. I just had to grind a piece of HSS. How about odd sized DP gears to fit a shaft spacing (I've done this) or profile shifting? Easy with this setup.
As the owner of the new gear you can all see Robert was the very talented engineer who was able to help rescue my mill head from the poor state it was in
Thank you! But all I did was make a gear and fit it to the shaft. The rest is down to you!
Awesome series. I thoroughly enjoyed. Cant wait for the further adventures of the Potting Shed Workshop.
@@jeff1176 🤣
Great work,Robert and amazing amount of detail work that you show.Thank you.
Thank you for watching. I just try to make the sort of video that I like to watch.
The metronomic sound of the shaper is very satisfying indeed. Not to mention the gear cutting and arithmetic involved.... Totally looking forward to what you have in mind for your next installment...👍🏻
Thank you! More shaper next week, but a somewhat different topic!
I'm not from a machining background but the math and and skill to make a gear is mesmerising
Thank you. I don't have an in depth machining background either! I was an electronic engineer.
The maths isn't that complicated, the system generates an involute curve by the nature of the way it moves. The rest of the maths is just a ratio!
Excellent work Robert, nice engineering sketch 👍.
Thanks! No need for a fully dimensioned drawing, just something to remind me what I set out to make!
Very nice work sir. You make it look so easy.
Thank you! I make it look easy? Hmm, maybe my video editing is improving!😂
Shaping gears is fun to do. And because of your little oops, you had double fun by shaping two gears :)
I should have spotted it wasn't 14.5 degrees PA. Fortunately, I had the wisdom to make a spare blank! Oh, it takes a long time to shaper cut gears, it's not something I'll do on a regular basis😁
Very nice video, Rob! I feel that there is a shaper in my gear-making future…the finished quality seems very high! Well done!
Thanks Tom! You'd find it quite slow compared to your hobber. The beauty is the tooling is cheap!
As the owner of the new gear I can confirm the quality is 1st class Thanks Robert
Excellent work! thank you for sharing. most enjoyable
Thank you for watching. Glad you enjoyed it.
I think the shaper mod videos showed up. They did not previously. This is an innovative way to cut gears. While gear cutters work, they are not always a precise method. You get screwed by these approx gears when running at higher speeds which demand the involute profile. Fellows did an awsome job in their gear shapers. This approach uses a metal shaper with mods to get that involute. It’s also useful in cutting dual DP gears. Some gears were cut using TWO DPs. One at the top and another at the root. Hardinge change gears are like this.
Thank you. I originally made the fixture to avoid spending money on involute cutters, only to use them once or twice. You're right, the profile should be closer to the ideal than a milling cutter as you have more teeth than the minimum the milling cutter is designed for. In principle, profile shifting is trivial, though I've not tried this. As for dual DP gears, thats not something I've come across or tried (yet?).
Nice one Robert.
@@tonyray91 Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it.
Wish I had room for a shaper! Good stuff.
I've got more machines than I've room for! You can back the shaper into a corner and make good use of the space!
There is always the kitchen or living room?
Thanks for sharing this series with us! I love that with your setup you only need one cutter for each Pressure Angle/Diametral Pitch combination instead of a set of 8. I understand that you need a fairly large set of gears to generate the correct number of teeth, but theoretically, couldn't those be 3D printed? It would also be interesting to know how much closer to the perfect involute form this method gets you vs. an off the shelf cutter?
@@marcsimonsen1578 Thank you for watching and commenting! It was the simplicity of the cutting tool that led me to make the attachment in the first place. You don't need a vast set of gears, I think I have about 14 including a couple I've made. As you need a universal dividing head for this, they should come with a set of gears (mine was missing a couple). You could buy a cutter and mill a few too. 3D printed gears may work fine, but thats not something I've tried. As for the shape, this technique should produce a "perfect" shape (mechanical limitations apply, obviously) whereas an involute cutter is only correct for the lowest number of teeth in its range ( a 135 to rack cutter has curved flanks, for a rack they should be straight).
@@ThePottingShedWorkshop Thank you for that explanation! I have a decent machine shop, but I lack several critical tools, such as a tool and cutter grinder, shaper, etc. I've been looking for some in my neck of the woods while learning all I can about them. I had heard that you could cut gears on a shaper but had not seen it in practice until you showed us the implementation!
Nice work!
@@SGS_Engineering Thank you!
it could be a nice paper weight, great vid!
@@graedonmunro1793 Looks like thats all it'll get used for!
Very nice way to cut a gear! Never thought that it could be done like this. What's your background? Machinist for all your live? Guessing here. Thank you for sharing your nice work! Best! Job
Thank you! My background? Electronics! Specifically, RF and high speed amplifier design on integrated circuits, retired now after 39 years.
Really enjoyed the video, only just noticed that your Elliott has imperial dials, mine is metric which makes it the black sheep of my workshop 😂
Glad you liked it. All my machines are old imperial ones, apart from the Union Tool and Cutter grinder.
Nice work, Robert!. I am curious, what was the total machining time to cut the gear teeth on the shaper? I do love watching that machine do its work.
Thanks for the compliment! Total time to cut the gear was 2 to 3 hours I think. 225 thou total depth taken in 5 passes, roughly. 20 teeth, 50? strokes per pass per tooth at 87 strokes per minute gives about 1 hour, not allowing for rewind time, incrementing the tooth, break time to maintain concentration. The video has most of this edited out!
@@ThePottingShedWorkshop Our videos are always a small, small, small representation of the real thing. Have to keep it interesting!
Well done. Bummer you had to make it twice.
Thanks! My fault, I made an assumption, should have spotted that earlier. Just as well I made a spare blank!😁
Maybe we can petition amazon to add a Sleep Sound of an electric metal shaper cutting gears?
It would send you to sleep, thats for sure!
Perhaps gashing the blank on the shaper with a slotting bit would be better for assuring accurate indexing. The only complication I can think of would be changing the slotting bit to the gear cutting bit and assuring the position relative to the work wouldn't change. It just occured to me also that one could theoretically fasten a small grinder to the tool head and grind the teeth on hardened gears with a properly shaped grinding wheel.
You could gash the blank on the shaper. It would be slow though. Look at the keyway cutting, downfeed is about 1 to 2 thou per stroke as its only a little machine. 225 thou depth, 20 teeth, 2 thou per stroke is a lot of strokes at the minimum speed, as theres no auto feed on the tool slide.
you need to explain to us how you got the shaper to cut an involute gear shape.
Just go back and watch the back catalogue video series on it, Robert deserves far more views on the build of the tooling to feed the UA-cam algorithm 👍
Thanks for encouraging others to watch those videos! You're right, all the info is in part 2 of the series on the gear cutting attachment. It's a bit dry but the maths isnt that complicated.
@@ThePottingShedWorkshop You're more than welcome, I watched the whole series avidly including the mathematics, I found it satisfying that it is more truly an involute than the approximation from a milling gear cutter. It took me back to my Geometric & Eng Drg. A level days back in the 80s doing cam constructions and graphical integration etc.
Enjoyable viewing, especially the hobbing of spur gear in slotter. You do know you could have done the hobbing in the mill. Either gear cutting tool or single point HSS tool in a fly cutter.Just saying. Your arbor would have to be made longer in length to clear er collet head.
Thanks for watching. Whilst you could cut the gear on the mill, it would require an involute cutter of the required DP and PA. A hand ground flycutter bit isn't going to have the same accuracy. Or you could use a hob, but timing the spindle to the rotation of the blank would turn this into a proper gear hobber - watch some of Tom's Rabbit Hole videos where he's done exactly that and its a lot more work. The tool for the shaper is a trapeziod, ie a rack tooth, easy to grind accurately.
NICE
Thank you!
probably a stupid question
what if you reshape the first gear with the new pressure angle as is? gear cutting is always just an aproximation of an actual shape anyway
@@kokodin5895 If I tried to recut with a 20 deg PA tool there would be very odd shaped teeth, there would be dents in the lower part of the flanks. The trochoid section at the root of the tooth undercuts slightly with 20T and 14.5 deg PA. Your last statement may be true of gears cut with an involute cutter if the number of teeth is greater than the minimum in the range specified for an individual cutter, but it is incorrect for gears cut either with a gear hobber or with the shaper as I do here, as it is cut with a rack tooth shaped tool moved at the correct traversing speed as the gear rotates.
Show the younger generation how to do it "old school".
It is simply too easy to do it on a commercial CNC machine using CAD/CAM to do all the thinking work.
Thanks! I spent too many working hours in front of a computer to take up CNC! Manual machining is so much more satisfying!
Very clever , Very nice but , Very un practical.
@@adrianfernandez1806 Not at all impractical. How would you cut a gear? With a hobber and a gear hob? Fast, practical and expensive. No? How about a mill and an involute cutter? Faster than the shaper and fine if you have the right cutter, but the cheapest cutter I could find for 10DP 20deg was about £60/$80, probably the only time I'll ever cut such a gear. I just had to grind a piece of HSS. How about odd sized DP gears to fit a shaft spacing (I've done this) or profile shifting? Easy with this setup.