Should These Gears Be Hardened

K

Knobley

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I am making some simple spur gears to replace a few damaged ones in the gearbox of a small lathe. Should they be hardened? The damaged gears I am replacing are not hardened. Thank you.
 
Sometimes parts are intended to fail as a weak link to protect other, more expensive parts. It's possible the old gears were damaged as part of a design. If so, I wouldn't harden the replacements. Otherwise, I would.
 
I am curious did the gears have broken teeth or did they badly worn edges from poor alignment? Was wondering if the previous owner/operator tried to power shift the gear box.
 
While the posts above are very likely to be accurate.
Do you happen to have the old worn out gears?
Possibly cast....
Consider running a file across the old gears.
If the file skates then. Yes, hardening them would likely be appropriate. Likely the file will cut.
Also, consider a "spark" test.
This is a potentially a learning opportunity for many of the HM readers (including me).

Daryl
MN
 
All the gears in my lathes are either zamak or cast iron. Neither are very hard at all, if they were hardened and you crashed.....well.....something more important than a replaceable gear would become damaged.
 
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