Since our founding in 1984, Gear Technology’s goal has been to educate and inform our readers of the technologies, products, processes,
services and news of importance to the gear industry and to provide our advertisers with the most complete and current circulation of gear
industry professionals available anywhere!
Pack your bags for a fun-filled
week in Chicago at IMTS 2004 with booth after booth of products
and services for gear manufacturers,
as well as a technical conference
and a student summit.
Hobs, broaches, shaper cutters,
shaver cutters, milling cutters,
and bevel cutters used in the
manufacture of gears are commonly
made of high speed steel. These specialized gear cutting tools often require properties, such as toughness or manufacturability, that are difficult to achieve with carbide, despite the developments in carbide cutting tools for end mills, milling cutters, and tool inserts.
Instances of damage to discontinuous form ground and surface-hardened gears, especially of large scale, have recently increased. This may be attributed partly to a faulty grinding process with negative effects on the surface zones and the surface
properties.
There are great advantages in dry hobbing, not only for friendliness
toward the environment, but also for increasing productivity and for decreasing manufacturing cost. Dry hobbing, however, often causes failures in hob cutting edges or problems with the surface quality of gear tooth flanks. These difficulties are not present when hobbing with cutting oil. Pinching and crushing of generated chips between the hob cutting edge and the work gear tooth flank is considered a major cause of those problems.
Imagine the $10 bill with the face of Edwin R. Fellows on it and on the back, a picture of his invention: the gear shaping machine. Or the $5 bill with George B. Grant and a picture of the first hobbing machine, which he built.