Why are gear tooth gauges so ridiculously expensive?

[JohnAspinall]

Screw pitch gauges are cheap - say $5 for a cheap one. Exactly the same technology could be used to stamp out a gear pitch gauge. Why do they cost ten times as much?

 

[higgite]

Supply and demand?

Tom

 

[MontanaLon]

Because they have no need to crank them out by the million.

 

[Nogoingback]

If you can find a Boston Gear catalog on eBay, they have full scale drawings of gear profiles that can be compared with the
actual gear. Perhaps not as nice as a gauge, but actually it works just fine.

 

[BGHansen]

I've got a plastic gauge and the more durable steel leaves. Below is a link to the "what I bought today" thread with a scanned photo of my plastic one. You should be able to print the photo, glue it to chip board and trim to size.

Bruce

What Did You Buy Today?

Ooooooh. Please give us a mini review once you’ve used it a bit longer. My compressor isn’t very large, only really useful for blowing chips around... so a small cordless grinder that isn’t anaemic would be great. Especially as I’ve got other M12 tools. :) They're are plenty of reviews on YT...

www.hobby-machinist.com

 

[GL]

Boston Gear also has downloadable catalogs with tooth profiles.

 

[Mister Ed]

Do you have access to a 3d printer?
I added a gear generator app to Fusion 360, generate a rack of however many teeth and the pitch you want and print. May not be as durable as the metal ones ... but cost a couple cents per gauge. I'm dealing mostly with 5 & 6 Dp gears ... and that has worked fine. You may run into issues going to finer Dp gears ... I guess it would depend on printer and slicer accuracy.

 

[Tim9]

Yeah. New they are outrageously priced. But you can find them on eBay. Sometimes you’ll find one priced fairly. I bought an older hard cover gear catalog...think it was Martin Gears. It has all the profiles with full sized pics. Very very nice item in my opinion.
But then I ran across a metal Boston Gear metal gauge set. So win-win.

 

[francist]

Don’t know if his prices will qualify as outrageous or not, but it’s one source for new.

-frank

 

[NCjeeper]

You have to be patient when on E-bay. It took me awhile to find a Boston Gear set at a reasonable price. They do pop up though.