Bodine Electric Co. of Chicago, IL., has a 97-year history of fine-and medium-pitch gear manufacturing. Like anywhere else, traditions, old systems, and structures can be beneficial, but they can also become paradigms and obstacles to further improvements. We were producing a high quality product, but our goal was to become more cost effective. Carbide hobbing is seen as a technological innovation capable of enabling a dramatic, rather than an incremental, enhancement to productivity and cost savings.

Crown gearings are not a new type of gear system. On the contrary, they have been in use since very early times for various tasks. Their earliest form is that of the driving sprocket, found in ancient Roman watermills or Dutch windmills. The first principles of gear geometry and simple methods of production (shaper cutting) were developed in the 1940s. In the 1950s, however, crown gears' importance declined. Their tasks were, for example, taken over by bevel gears, which were easier to manufacture and could transmit greater power. Current subject literature accordingly contains very little information on crown gears, directed mainly to pointing out their limitations (Ref. 1).

Recent trends in gear cutting technology have left process engineers searching for direction about which combination of cutting tool material, coating, and process technology will afford the best quality at the lowest total cost. Applying the new technologies can have associated risks that may override the potential cost savings. The many interrelated variables to be considered and evaluated tend to cloud the issue and make hobbing process development more difficult.

Complete Industry News for January/February 2001.

Nowadays, finish hobbing (which means that there is no post-hobbing gear finishing operation) is capable of producing higher quality gears and is growing in popularity.

Increased productivity in roughing operations for gear cutting depends mainly on lower production costs in the hobbing process. In addition, certain gears can be manufactured by shaping, which also needs to be taken into account in the search for a more cost-effective form of production.

I'd like to share with you a vision of the future. It takes place in cyberspace, and it's coming soon to a computer near you. Whether you like it or not, and whether you're ready or not, the Internet is changing the way business is conducted.

Industry News for July/August 1998.

Product announcements so often trumpet minor, incremental advances with works like "revolutionary" and "unique" that even the best thesaurus can fail to offer a fresh alternative to alert the reader when something really innovative and important is introduced. In the case of Mitsubishi's new CNC gear shaper, the ST25CNC, both terms apply.

We are all looking for ways to increase production without sacrificing quality. One of the most cost-effective ways is by improving the substrate material of your hob. Solid carbide hobs are widely used in many applications throughout the world. LMT-Fette was the first to demonstrate the use of solid carbide hobs in 1993 on modern high-speed carbide (HSC) hobbing machines. Since then the process of dry hobbing has been continuously improving through research and product testing. Dry hobbing is proving to be successful in the gear cutting industry as sales for dry hobbing machines have steadily been rising along with the dramatic increase in sales of solid carbide hobs.