Need a source for phenolic material for a gear

Thank you all for the information. In my world of computer design for the last 45 years, I have never dealt with anything like this except for the G-10 glass-epoxy circuit boards. This stuff was always just called "Phenolic." It is a dirty brown color and as I look closely at it, it very well could be some kind of cloth with a resin fill. I have only seen it used in terminal strips and seen it used for insulating standoff's. Too late for the respirator!! I cut a gear out of that stuff about 18 months ago. The previous owner of the lathe obviously had the same issues as the material for the gear as well as the involute cutter came in a box of spares when I got the lathe. I will take precautions when I cut this one.

As for the gear being sacrificial - My 10L has a factory installed "fine feed" option. That includes a second motor mounted behind and below the headstock. There is a belt driven jack shaft that has the 20 tooth phenolic gear on the inboard side, just below the banjo. There is only about 100 thou between the top of the phenolic gear and the bottom of the gear on the banjo. To engage the fine feed, you loosen the banjo and push it down to disengage from the spindle gear train and engage the fine feed drive. At that point, the lead screw is mechanically disconnected from the spindle. You can choose any carriage speed with the quick change gear box but spindle speed is controlled by the belts on the headstock (and in my case the vfd.) I can run the spindle at 7-8 hundred rpm and have the carriage move so slowly that it is hard to see the hand wheel turn. You can literally create a mirror finish. (That is if you have the time to wait for it to cut) I can slow the feed down to where it will take about 10 minutes per inch and the spindle is humming along at a very high speed. Fun to play with but I have never had a real need for it. But since I do have it, I want it to work.

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/show...on-Southbend-lathe?highlight=fine+feed+option

The fine feed is about the 5th picture down in this thread.

How did I strip the teeth off the gear? I didn't get the spindle gears completely disengaged before turning the power on the fine feed option. Kind of like having the back gears engaged without pulling the pin on the bull gear. Only in this case, the belts didn't slip.

Thanks for the offers but now that I know what I am actually looking for I will try and obtain it locally. If I can't find it locally, I will take one of you up on your offer to sell me some.

I appreciate all the comments and suggestions.

Earl
 
Some other names for phenolic material are:

Novolac, Resol, Novotex and Tufnol.

They vary in their properties. I have used Tufnol in the past with great results. Many lathes use Tufnol gears in the head stock or for certain change gears as it makes the machine much quieter in operation. It also acts as a sacrificial gear if you do something silly.

Paul.
 
I have more of these pieces so I'm not going to miss one. Now it may be a little hard on the cutter, but not nearly as bad as glass epoxy. I expect the original gear was vulcanized fibre.
 
I received a couple of pieces of material from Alan today. It looks exactly like the material that the original gear was made from. Looks like I will be playing with my little Atlas Horizontal mill this weekend.
Thanks Alan

Alan,
I am curious as to what you use this material for and I also wonder if you know the trade name of this particular material.

Earl
 
Those particular pieces are linen-base phenolic and had been kicking around the shop at the company I used to work for. They're probably 40 years old and would have been part of some oceanographic research instrument where a tough insulator was needed.
 
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