Gear Cutting Advice

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

 

I'm about to cut some change wheels for my lathe, a Leinen L4ZS as I don't have the appropriate full set to cut the threads I need for a particular job. This will be the first time I have ever cut gears.

 

The gears are 1.25 MOD and I have bought the gear cutter for the job.

I'm thinking of cutting the 15mm thick gears on my Centec 2A mill with the axis horizontal and the cutter in the vertical head.

 

The full depth of the teeth is a little less than 3 mm.

 

My question is should I be thinking of cutting the teeth in one pass with a fine feed rate or should I consider several passes.

 

I could also do the job with the cutter mounted on a horizontal spindle.

 

I'm also thinking that I need to complete my powered feed project first.

What advice can you offer?

 

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Hi Andy,

I have made module 1 gears cut to full depth in one pass. I don't think your Centec should have any problems cutting the gears required. Using the horizontal spindle might provide a better setup.  What kind of material are you using for the gears?

 

Thor

 

Edited By Thor on 02/10/2014 06:05:25

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

I believe it's mild steel, the spec number quoted by the Waterjet cutting bloke was a number un familiar to me. He said he thought it was mild steel. A bit vague I know but as the gears are not highly stressed I thought it would be ok.

[Anonymous]

Cut them in one pass, anything else just wears the cutter for no benefit. I've cut 5DP gears in cast iron and 6DP in EN8 in one pass, and 2 thou per cutter tooth chip load, without any problems.

Regards,

Andrew

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I'v cut similar size gears with a fly cutter in one pass in steel.

Ian S C

[VersabossParticipant @versaboss]

Ah, finally a Leinen owner here! (although it's a LZ4S…). So we are two, almost a crowd then.

My example was missing the (quite important) 90 teeth wheel, so I went the easy route and bought two standard gears, bolted and loctited them together and turned down to the thickness of the others – 15 mm you say. I'm sure one of the thinner wheels with a hub would be sufficient also.

Btw I use small polyurethane vee belts and a set of pulleys for the feeds – much more silent than the gears!

Bit OT, I know

Regards, HansR.

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

Hi there Versaboss, mine's a LZ4S as well (must remove boxing gloves when typing). The 90 tooth is on my list to make.

Is yours a solid bearing or the later roller bearing spindle?

Are you in the UK?

[VersabossParticipant @versaboss]

Hi Andy, my Leinen has roller bearings. I often think they would need just a little bit of adjustment, but I'm not able to understand how to do that. Also the two-speed clutch is shot and works only on the high speed side. Ah well, the oil in the headstock and especially the apron has the habit of disappearing very fast…

But nonetheless this lathe can still do precision work.

Not in UK, Switzerland it is…

Regards, HansR.

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

Oh dearie me, bearing adjustment was the one thing I was hoping you would know about.

Never mind they are wonderful pieces of kit.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Andy & HansR.

Fired by curiosity, and a lust for good machinery … I've just found this discussion, which looks to have some useful links.

MichaelG.

.

P.S. the link seems to have included all the Safari-specific stuff, so you may need to edit it for your browser:

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://forum.zerspanungsbude.net/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D44%26t%3D10005&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dleinen%2Blz4s%2Bbedienungsanleitung%26client%3Dsafari%26hl%3Den

 

Edit: here is the basic link

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/10/2014 08:45:16

[ANDY CAWLEYParticipant @andycawley24921]

Michael, thanks for that. I have an English version of the manual that Tony Griffiths has however that is for a plain bearing lathe and mine is a roller bearing version. I have now got a later manual for the roller bearing version however it is in German a language with which I am not familiar.

Google translate goes part of the way but the translation of technical German is rather quaint. I'm gradually unpicking it, I think!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by ANDY CAWLEY on 03/10/2014 22:39:18:

Google translate goes part of the way but the translation of technical German is rather quaint. I'm gradually unpicking it, I think!

.

Andy,

Many years ago, I worked at Kodak in Stevenage, and we often had to work with technical documents from the German factory. Once you get the way they construct technical words [which is simply by stringing together a series of smaller words] it is surprisingly easy to translate.

MichaelG.

[Author]

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