Single point gear cutter in use!
by
Ronald E. Thompson
1/16/2011

This is a follow up to the Single point gear cutter page. This is the setup on the Taig CNC mill. It's running in the photo, but the flash stopped it. I have been cutting teeth all day, so there is a lot of chips. These aren't really gears, they are index plates, so they aren't involute tooth forms. The cutter doesn't care, they cut the same way. As you can see, I don't have much room. Good for rigidity, but tight to work in. As my tooth depth is only in the neighborhood of .075" I didn't need much of the cutter sticking out. The radius at the tool tip is around 1". Below, I turned the tool for a better view. And this is the almost finished index plate just off the mill. I still need to deburr the teeth and do a couple of more operations to make this a good part, but the cutting operation went splendidly. My setup was to cut .010" per pass at 6 inches per minute. The HSS cutter looks as good after 7 or 8 parts as it did when I first ground it. The cutter body helps conduct heat away from the tool, and it didn't even get warm even though I was cutting dry. This part is made from 12L14 steel. Given the size of the teeth, I think if I make another cutter, it will be smaller and instead of 3/8" tool steel, I will use 3/16".

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