Making Milling Cutters

for cutting gear wheels

by D. J.Unwin
Continued from page 969

Part II

THE FORMING TOOL can be removed and a parting

tool or any other tool suitable for cutting on the side
0
is set at the correct flank angle - can be used to
2
carefully machine the taper (Fig. 10). If you have
no protractor to set up, make a simple angle gauge
out of a piece of tinplate marked out with the aid of
a school celluloid protractor or to dimensions from
a table of tangents. Take care in this operation to
avoid removing too much metal and producing a
step where the radius is tangential to the flank. T o
ensure the best possible finish, and therefore
minimum friction of the gears, carefully oilstone all
tools to a keen smooth edge by rubbing the oilstone
along the cutting edge, not across it. Use a slow
cutting speed and plenty of cutting oil. Take great
care to get the shape symmetrical and when making

the multi-tooth cutters use the index collar readings

to repeat each tooth accurately.

Fig. 2

3 jaw chuck

!-FL

-Cross slide

Fig.5.

J
-Jig drilling- the form cutter bar on the lathe,

MODEL ENGINEER 1.5 October 1971

Parallel mandrel

Fig .10.

cl

Fig .6.
Machining

-Squarin
-

g up th e Form Tool

angles
on side of Ogival cutter

side faces to the correct flank angle 0 carefully,

ensuring that the faces are straight and have about
5 deg. clearance. If you prefer, you can make it of
cast steel, milling or filing the flats and then
hardening it. Once again make a gauge if you
have no protractor.

Diagram of Ogival Form tool for larger pitches

Fig.8.
it

Approx 5

The radius 'r' is rather too small to use this

method when making the finer pitches. In this
case I used a single tool only, (Fig. 11). Grind the
Fig. 9.

Fig.11.
Single point form tool
Approx 5
for making
clearance -4 Qgival Cutters.
Now make a radius gauge to get the tip correct.
An easy way to do this is to drill a hole in a piece of
thin sheet metal of diameter 2r. Take care that the
hole is round and not oversize by drilling it undersize and following through with the correct size.

Hole drilled before

cutting
\

Fig.12.

for single point form tool.

-Radius gauge
1018

MODEL ENGINEER 15 October 1971

Fig .13.
Fig .14.
Machining first side of blank.

Fig. 15.

Cutter blank

Measuring the width of the cutter blank.

Cut away a fraction over half of the hole, remove
any burrs and now we have a gauge of the correct
radius (Fig. 12).
The tip of the tool is now oilstoned, or filed if still
soft, to the right shape using the gauge as a guide.
Holding it up to a light and an eyeglass can assist
this operation. Another trick is to use a slide projector as a shadowgraph and project the image on to
a piece of white paper.
Set the completed tool in the lathe toolpost with
the angle symmetrical with the lathe axis. Machine
one side of the cutter blank as before (Fig. 13) then
stop the lathe and move the tool to the opposite
side and proceed to machine again. Measuring the
width S is not quite so easy as before, but can be

-Set square

Fig.16.Centreing the cutter on the gear using blank set squares

MODEL ENGINEER 15 October 1971

1019

+
c-

Fig .18.

Pinion blank
_

i\

Cutter

Pinion blank with larger diameter ends to increase stiffness,

Cutter
traversed

Side view

Align cutter
with mark to
centralise

too high and causing premature failure of the

edge. Fig. 15 shows Involute and Ogival multitooth cutters and a fly cutter. One or two tips
about cutting gears may be of interest:
It is very important to get the cutter exactly over
the centre of the gear blank, otherwise the teeth will
be lopsided. One method is to put a square
against each side of the gear blank and measure the
distance from each side of the cutter (Fig. 16).
Another trick is to run the machine and carefully
advance the blank until it just touches the cutter-

J-J-

Mark produced
/ by cutter
Blank

Plan view
Centreing up using mark on circumference
of the blank.
achieved using a set of feeler gauges and a micrometer. Firstly select a stack of feelers equal to r
then hold these on the shoulder of the tooth and
resting the micrometer anvil on them whilst carefully taking a micrometer reading (Fig. 14). Once
the initial measurement has been made the index
collars can be used to get the final correct size.
When making multi-tooth cutters, the operations
on each tooth need care and careful setting of the
slide rest index collars to ensure that each tooth is
identical. After these operations are complete, the
cutter can be finished off in a similar manner to the
Involute cutters.
It is worth remembering that fly cutters should
be kept as short as practical, about 1-1/2 in. long is
sufficient. This enables the maximum rotative
speed to be used without the cutting speed becoming

I020

Approximate method of cutting short

spiral gears.
MODEL ENGINEER 15 October 1971

Top: Fig. 20.

Centre: Fig. 21.

Bottom: Fig. 22.

a piece of cigarette paper stuck on with a touch of

oil is a good witness. Then move the blank
laterally under the still rotating cutter, so producing
a very small mark on the circumference of the blank.
With the machine stopped, the cutter can now be
lined up with this surprisingly accurately (Fig. 17).
Care must be taken during cutting not to force
the cutter into the work, as there is a danger that the
teeth already cut may be bent over. This is particularly important when fly cutting. Also important is the need to ensure that the axis of the
blank is parallel to the machine traverse in all
planes. Ensure that the backlash in the dividing
mechanism is always taken up in the same direction.
MODEL ENGINEER 15 October 1971

When cutting larger teeth, locking the mandrel

supporting the blank at each cut is a useful precaution; sometimes one side of the cutter may
become slightly dull and push the blank round
whilst cutting, so producing an inaccurate gear.
When producing small pinions, I find the best
method is to cut a short length mounted between
centres or in a collet chuck and centre. To make
it as stiff as possible, larger material than necessary
is used, turning down only that part which is to be
cut with teeth. A head must often be left on the
end to support the centre (Fig. 18).
Bevel wheels cannot be correctly cut unless they
are generated on specially designed machines.
However, acceptable gears, certainly adequate for
say a traction engine differential, can be made by
the amateur using cutters of the type I have
described.
It is necessary to make two cuts through each
tooth, slightly displacing the cutter each side of the
centre line, so that each flank of the tooth is on a
radial line to the centre of the cone of the bevel
wheel.
When undertaking gear repairs, some interesting
detective work is sometimes necessary to discover
what the damaged wheel originally consisted of. I f
the diameter can be measured, there is no problem
as the DP etc., can be worked out from this.
However, if it is stripped completely it is worth
remembering that just as the O.D. of a blank is
n + 2
so the diameter at the bottom of the teeth
DP
(ignoring root clearance which if the wheel is
n - 2.
stripped will still be present) is ~ We can
DP
therefore establish the DP and OP from DP =
n - 2
The number of teeth can usually be
stripped dia.
seen-on the stripped blank or determined from the
associated train of wheels.
Whilst cutting spiral gears requires a universal
milling machine, provided the width of the wheel
is not too great and the angle not excessive, workable wheels can be cut by setting the axis of the
gear blank at the required angle to the cutter and
the feed. In this case the cutter must be set
central on the blank when it is in the middle of the
width (Fig. 19). Fig. 20 shows a group of gears
which I have made at various times. One item of
interest may be the sprocket for a cine projector on
the left. Although not a gear wheel, the teeth were
cut to involute form with a circular pitch equal to
that of the film perforations.
Fig. 21 shows the teeth of a clock great wheel
being cut with a fly cutter on my milling machine,
and Fig. 22 shows a length of steel pinion being
cut using a multi-tooth cutter.
*
1021