Home made fiber gears - anyone ever tried?

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Chuck
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Re: Home made fiber gears - anyone ever tried?

Post by Chuck »

Speaking from experience:

I've hand made lots of small parts and finished
them using small files. The materials I've worked
with have included brass, copper, aluminum, stainless
steel, bakelite, plexiglas. There have even been times
when I've had to make my own home-made concoctions
to arrive at suitable material.

A mixture of fiberglass resin mixed with fine
black bakelite dust hardens to a black material
nearly indistinguishable from old black bakelite.

I have never made any gears.

Sure, that small gear could probably be hand made using files.
I'd start with the appropriately thick piece
of bakelite. Then scribe the outside radius.
Then drill the center hole so that it presses onto
the shaft. Then mark the locations of the teeth.
Then with extreme care start forming each tooth.

It may take several attempts before it comes out
right. But yeah, I do think this can be done.

It's only a matter of how much effort someone is
willing to put in.
"Sustained success depends on searching
for, and gaining, fundamental understanding"

-Bell System Credo

burke
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Location: Nova Scotia

Re: Home made fiber gears - anyone ever tried?

Post by burke »

Thank you chuck for the recipe.

Even if I eventually find the part, I'm almost tempted to try it in any event.

One approach I thought worth trying would be that once you have a blank with the drilled hole, you could ink the old gear and roll it onto paper. The paper could then cut into a strip and glued to the outside of the blank. Then mark your depth on the flat side and start removing material.

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Chuck
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Re: Home made fiber gears - anyone ever tried?

Post by Chuck »

Possibly some kind of a mounting jig can be made
that will hold the gear blank, and allow it to be turned
by small amounts when indexing to the next tooth
position.

Possibly another holder jig of some sort may be
able to be made which would hold a dremel tool
and allow it to be pushed in by small amounts
to make the cuts. A thin abrasive cutoff wheel
could be used in the dremel.

Then, once all of the initial rough cuts have been
made using the dremel, then afterwards the rough
cuts can be finished up with small files to give the
teeth better profiles.

The only thing lacking with this kind of a setup
would be the ability to automatically "dial in"
the exact correct setting to rotate the blank to the
location of the next tooth, such as a proper gear
cutting arrangement has. This rather crude setup
here would rely on cutting each tooth with the dremel
after locating it as best possible from marks.

I think that with enough patience it can be done.

The key to it I think would be when making the cuts,
after you get clear around the blank for the first time
if all of your rough-cut teeth are fairly close to
all the same size, then it will work.
"Sustained success depends on searching
for, and gaining, fundamental understanding"

-Bell System Credo

JerryVan
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Re: Home made fiber gears - anyone ever tried?

Post by JerryVan »

Burke,

I don't have a lot of free time these days, but if you're willing, I can most likely make the gear you need. In general, I can't make a helical gear that would mesh with another helical gear. (BTW, that's a helical gear) However, since this gear will be meshed with a worm gear, it should work o.k. You would need to send me the spindle shaft, with the existing gear still on it. If you're interested, PM me and I'll let you know where to send it. P.S. The cost would be minimal.

burke
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Location: Nova Scotia

Re: Home made fiber gears - anyone ever tried?

Post by burke »

JerryVan wrote:Burke,

I don't have a lot of free time these days, but if you're willing, I can most likely make the gear you need. In general, I can't make a helical gear that would mesh with another helical gear. (BTW, that's a helical gear) However, since this gear will be meshed with a worm gear, it should work o.k. You would need to send me the spindle shaft, with the existing gear still on it. If you're interested, PM me and I'll let you know where to send it. P.S. The cost would be minimal.
PM sent
and again thanks for this very generous offer of help.

Such a great community!

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