I want to cut my first gear

Alexander McGilton said:
I will write with more detail tonight
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Sorry for delay, the posts above effective said what I would have said about buying options. One benefit of making a low speed press as your first project with gears, is that the mechanics are very forgiving. You aren't giving this a 100k mile powertrain warranty so the involute profile need not be exact. In regard of craftsmanship and what to make or buy. You may as well cut your own pinion. Indexing precise components is an intimidating yet rewarding experience. Also you may want to later change the pinion to a larger diameter if you find that the retract takes too many revolutions and the forces is needlessly minimal.

For making the rack, if you go about those tapered end mills, don't rely on Z zero being a function tool tip contact and depth. like a thread, take a shallow progression of cuts place a reference pin between the tooth flanks and measure to rack back surface to pin tangent, then machine to full depth.

www.wenzelamerica.com

Dimension Over Two Balls | WENZEL America

The standard parameters that are output when inspecting a gear are helix, profile, pitch, and runout. However, I find almost every customer asks for an additional parameter to be output – dimension over two balls (or pins). In this blog, I explain what this measurement entails as well as why it...
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Yeah, I really would like to make both the rack and the pinion and not buy them. That's the point of this project.

Like mentioned previously, I'm thinking of going with:
M = 1.25
N = 16
PA = 20
OD = 0.8858"
PD = 0.7874"
D+f = 0.1062"

I might go with the Chinese cutters in case I need to change N on another iteration.

I like your idea of using pins on the rack to measure depth. I have a complete set of gage pins. I just need to figure out what size pin and what measurement I'm shooting for.

Since this project involves filling and capping beer bottle, I plan on using aluminum as much as possible with some SS hardware. I don't think I will wear this out not using steel. Brass with the pinion and rack would be better, but much more money.

I'm still working on the design in FreeCad, but I will post an assembly drawing when it's almost done.
 
I think the selection of cutters is limited, because involute gear cutters are pretty much a small shop or hobby item today.

Another thing to consider in a potentially wet, potentially corrosive environment is that brass doesn't play nice with steel. I no longer remember the specifics, or what reference I used, but there was a chart rating various metal on metal interactions. Brass + steel was the worst combination on the chart. Aluminum + steel was much better, which is a fact that is supported by millions of engine blocks.

If you do a little homework, you can probably find an aluminum alloy that would stand up almost as well as steel in this application.
 
If you go about anodizing your aluminum parts, you can get some reasonably good color combos. I don't recommend anodizing your self on the first try, not to say you cant anodize in the garage. Just getting an even color and thickness is a learning process in its self. Having an item like a taig lathe in size shape and choice of color or the suspension components on a FSAE car anodized professional is often cheaper than the express shipping to and from of said components.

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The Taig Lathe – technitoys.com

technitoys.com technitoys.com
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I ordered a set of cutters from China. Hopefully, I'll get a complete set of decent quality in a reasonable amount of time.

I also ordered the tapered end mills from All Industrial.

I'm looking at R8 arbors now for the gear cutters. I think this will work: R8 22mm shank arbor. It doesn't state if there is a key in it, but I think the 22mm diameter matches the bore size on the cutters.
 

YH-KE Lathe High Hardness 45 Steel R8 Shank 22Mm Milling Arbor Gear Mill Cutter Tool Holder Lathe CNC Cutting Tools : Amazon.ca: Industrial & Scientific

YH-KE Lathe High Hardness 45 Steel R8 Shank 22Mm Milling Arbor Gear Mill Cutter Tool Holder Lathe CNC Cutting Tools : Amazon.ca: Industrial & Scientific
www.amazon.ca

RE-MACHINABLE SOFT STUB BLANK ARBOR-LATHE,DRILL,(R8 SHANK -7/16" UNF DRAWBAR) : Amazon.ca: Tools & Home Improvement

RE-MACHINABLE SOFT STUB BLANK ARBOR-LATHE,DRILL,(R8 SHANK -7/16" UNF DRAWBAR) : Amazon.ca: Tools & Home Improvement
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Shop made arbors
 
devils4ever said:
How's brass and aluminum combo?
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It looks like that isn't a great combination. After I did more reading on the topic, I doubt this is ever going to be much of an issue for you no matter what. You probably just aren't going to be exposing it to enough water to create major problems, even if you do use metal combinations that aren't ideal.
 
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