The Tools behind Gear Shaping

Gears are defined by their teeth and the process of creating them is called gear shaping. It is a multi-step process that can create accurate and precise splines and different gear designs. The gear shaping process can be used to make various types of gears such as helical and spur gears, as well as other components such as spline shafts. These resulting gears have low margins of error as gear shaping needs to be a highly accurate process, and is usually aided by processes such as CNC machining.

Cutting the tooth involves the cutter moving across the gear blank, which produces the splines.

There is specialized equipment called shaper cutters used to clear away the material being cut during the process. This special tool can have attachments with special features that allow them to perform more specialized cutting. One more important gear manufacturing tool needed for gear shaping are drill bits. They are connected to a drill that provides the rotating power to pierce through the spur gears being shaped. Drill bits can be made from various materials and choosing the right material depends on the properties of the material to be drilled during the gear shaping process.

Though there are different types of drill bits available to choose from, here are the top three options that are used most often to perform the process.

• Twist drill bits: these bits are mass-produced and can be used on various materials such as plastics, wood, metals, and others. Most have a point angle for drilling any material while the shallower angle works best for drilling metals and shaping spur gears.
• Spade drill bits: these tools are an alternative to resolving shaping issues at high speed because they run at a faster speed and feed rate to generate large diameter bores and special contours. Spade drills can be customized depending on the gear shaping specifications.
• Index-able drill bits: these ones are ideal when high precision is needed and are mostly used in CNC processes to cut holes with speed and outperform other types of drills in material removal.

For all your gear manufacturing needs, make sure to call True Gear & Spline. We have all the latest machinery to guarantee the best cuts.