One of the cardinal rules of design engineering is that you will never overcome physics. It is an applied science so misunderstanding or ignoring m...

Making great products is a team effort. It annoys me when the host of a certain house remodeling show claims credit for how wonderful her project t...

Gears are wonderful things. Unfortunately, they require support from shafts, bearings, and some sort of housing to be useful. Without these things,...

In the last blog posting, I covered the importance of developing a Product Specification and getting all the “stakeholders” to agree on what a succ...

Once you have an idea what your device will look like, the urge to start designing is strong. Before you start calculating gear ratings, however, t...

As mentioned in my last posting, blank sheets of paper present a huge challenge to any machinery designer. For the beginner, it is even a higher hu...

Today’s title does not refer to writer’s block. After 660 contributions to the magazine and blog, I still have a few things to cover ahead of my pl...

Before we move on from helix angle restrictions, I want to say a few things about face contact ratio. Soon after the appearance of the first helica...

Some of you are probably calling forth the gear deities to smite me for promoting a “free thinking” approach to helix angles; I understand complete...

Regular followers of this blog know whenever I say “it all depends,” that I am compelled to credit industry legend Ray Drago for stealing his catch...