Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

CUTTING A GEAR WITH A TAP

I need to practice this and learn how to do it -

Several key factors involved in letting that method work for you, and then it is only good for creating a channeled worm gear, which has a rather limited application. If actual gear cutting is of interest to you, then certain accessories and set-ups are required, but there is nothing about it that you can't master, and then the sky is the limit as to what sort of more normal gearing you may create for yourself!

 The only issue going down the gear cutting road is cost and money
And I spend enough now in my shed on tooling

Cheers
Dennis

Quote from: Stoker on March 13, 2021, 08:38:22 pm

Several key factors involved in letting that method work for you, and then it is only good for creating a channeled worm gear, which has a rather limited application. If actual gear cutting is of interest to you, then certain accessories and set-ups are required, but there is nothing about it that you can't master, and then the sky is the limit as to what sort of more normal gearing you may create for yourself!

 The only issue going down the gear cutting road is cost and money
And I spend enough now in my shed on tooling

Cheers
Dennis

You certainly are correct with that statement Dennis .... you can buy a lot of gears from suppliers for what a gear cutting set-up costs, and you do have to have a lathe that has or will take an indexing plate. There are many further complexities you could go into as well, like making your own special shaped cutters for forming gear teeth ... something of an art with a lot of math and science required ......... like I said, it can get complex .... and like you said ..... it can get expensive.

Well yes, that would work, but so would a narrow knurling wheel.

Have you got first hand experience of that method Daniel? If you have could you post up some pics of what you use and the results you achieved?

I haven't had any success that way, I've had better, but still not what I'm really after with a stipling method I tried out.

Quote from: Stoker on March 13, 2021, 11:24:24 pm

Well yes, that would work, but so would a narrow knurling wheel.

Have you got first hand experience of that method Daniel? If you have could you post up some pics of what you use and the results you achieved?

I haven't had any success that way, I've had better, but still not what I'm really after with a stipling method I tried out.

Nope, not done it myself, but have seen it done on a slightly larger scale (1/4-1/2" round belting) and it seemed to work out fine. Can't see why it wouldn't work out on our size of scale pulleys as well.

I have chucked a 6-32 tap in the lathe, made a bar for the tool post with a pin in it to hold a pulley horizontally. Ran the pulley into the spinning tap, it actually did not a bad job. Set up looked much like the photo of first video only in miniature.

Cheers Frank, Trev (from Trev's Toy Box) has said that he also uses the method "I use this method a lot for making
worm drives.    For serrations on drive pulleys,  I use a 1/8th tap
in the mill chuck, and hand hold the grooved pulley on a piece
suitable shaft, so it can spin freely, Trev"