Your May/June issue contains a letter from Edward Ubert of Rockwell International with some serious questions about specifying and measuring tooth thickness.

Much of the information in this article has been extracted from an AGMA Technical Paper, "What Single Flank Testing Can Do For You", presented in 1984 by the author

With the publishing of various ISO draft standards relating to gear rating procedures, there has been much discussion in technical papers concerning the various load modification factors. One of the most basic of parameters affecting the rating of gears, namely the endurance limit for either contact or bending stress, has not, however, attracted a great deal of attention.

History comes around full circle. It is interesting to talk to gear manufacturers who service the defense, aerospace, automotive and computer industries and find that their sales, production and backlogs reflect excellent and, in some cases, record breaking business.

Gear shaving is a free-cutting gear finishing operation which removes small amounts of metal from the working surfaces of the gear teeth. Its purpose is to correct errors in index, helical angle, tooth profile and eccentricity.