The forming of gear teeth has traditionally been a time-consuming heavy stock removal operation in which close tooth size, shape, runout and spacing accuracy are required. This is true whether the teeth are finished by a second forming operation or a shaving operation.

Since we are a high volume shop, we were particularly interested in Mr. Kotlyar's article describing the effects of hob length on production efficiency which appeared in the Sept/Oct issue of Gear Technology. Unfortunately, some readers many be unnecessarily deterred from applying the analysis to their own situations by the formidabilty of the mathematical calculations. I am making the following small suggestion concerning the evaluation of the constant terms.

Helical gears can drive either nonparallel or parallel shafts. When these gears are used with nonparallel shafts, the contact is a point, and the design and manufacturing requirements are less critical than for gears driving parallel shafts.

Hobbing is probably the most popular gear manufacturing process. Its inherent accuracy and productivity makes it a logical choice for a wide range of sizes.

As we approach the problem of hard gear processing, it is well to take a look at the reason for discussing it at this time. In our present economic atmosphere throughout the world, more and more emphasis is being placed upon efficiency which is dictated by higher energy costs.

The gear hobbing process is a generating type of production operation. For this reason, the form of the hob tooth is always different from the form of the tooth that it produces.

Gear gashing is a gear machining process, very much like gear milling, utilizing the principle of cutting one or more tooth (or tooth space) at a time. The term "GASHING" today applies to the roughing, or roughing and finishing, of coarse diametral pitch gears and sprockets. Manufacturing these large coarse gears by conventional methods of rough and finish hobbing can lead to very long machining cycles and uneconomical machine utilization.