Home Made 2 Ton Arbor Press

[glens5]

This is pretty rad!

You wouldn’t happen to have any pics of your lathe set up to cut the teeth would you? I was just thinking about maybe possibly considering looking at building an arbor press.

No, sorry Weldo I don't. I've always been rather delinquent when it comes to documenting things.
I cut the rack with a fly cutter in a bar mounted in the lathe between the head stock and tail stock.
The pitch was maintained by using a shim between the carriage and an adjustable stop for each cut.
The rack was clamped in a home made milling fixture mounted in place of the turret and elevated through the fly cutter each pass.
I had to flip the rack at one point as the bar with the cutter wasn't long enough and the tail stock was interfering.
The pinion gear was cut in the lathe as well with a home made indexer and key way cutter.

 

[markba633csi]

Nicely done! Bet it took some time too! Ingenious indexer
-Mark

 

[Weldo]

It sounds like you pretty much used your lathe as a horizontal mill, is that right? And the key way cutter is cool! It’s like a manual shaper!

 

[cathead]

That's very impressive work using the lathe!

 

[glens5]

It sounds like you pretty much used your lathe as a horizontal mill, is that right? And the key way cutter is cool! It’s like a manual shaper!

Yes but it's far from the perfect solution. I've since picked up an old horizontal mill that I'm refurbishing right now.
The keyway cutter is simple and great for cutting internal and external keyways and in this case, the pinion gear.
I have numerous grandkids and have made three "go karts" with rack and pinion steering on each as well. 3/4" racks rather than the 1" on the press.

 

[Weldo]

How do you go about grinding the tool to shape? Do you need some kind of gauge or can you make some kind of custom tooth shape because you are also making the mating part?

You can use the same tool for both the rack and the pinion, right?

 

[Weldo]

I’ve since done some reading on gear cutters and retract my last question.

So if you wanted to use involuted cutters, the kind that work like a slitting saw, you would need 2 cutters for this job. One to cut the rack and one that corresponds to the number of teeth the pinion is designed to have. Probably a number 1 for the rack and number 7 or 8 for the pinion?

Both cutters must have the same pitch diameter. Is that right?

 

[glens5]

I’ve since done some reading on gear cutters and retract my last question.

So if you wanted to use involuted cutters, the kind that work like a slitting saw, you would need 2 cutters for this job. One to cut the rack and one that corresponds to the number of teeth the pinion is designed to have. Probably a number 1 for the rack and number 7 or 8 for the pinion?

Both cutters must have the same pitch diameter. Is that right?

The profile is different for the pinion and rack. I think the pinion was 1 1/4" diameter with twelve teeth. The picture is of the fly cutter profile for the pinion.