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Whether you’re in the market for drive system design assistance or skilled maintenance and training services, this company has solutions to the challenges you face.

It was the early seventies, and after six years spent working as a high-speed gearing specialist for a company on the West Coast, John B. Amendola, Sr., knew that change was in the air. End users of high-speed gears were experiencing a rise in gear failures, and he wanted to work with a company that […]

Plastic gears can provide a high-torque, high-speed, cost-effective solution for a host of demanding applications, according to the experts at Kleiss Gears.

The performance of molded polymer gears continues to improve with new design solutions, improved materials, and higher-accuracy molding. As a result, designers now use them more to solve challenging product requirements, especially with regard to miniature and micro-miniature mechanisms. Plastic gears can provide a high-torque, high-speed, cost-effective solution for a host of needs. Kleiss Gears […]

The following technical paper from Gleason describes the Cyclocut process for advanced cutting, skiving, and semi-completing of bevel gears in low quantities.

Low-quantity bevel gearsets can be manufactured with the Cyclo-Palloid® method. The Cyclo-Palloid uses interlocking face hobbing cutters with five starts in most cases. For the soft cutting, each cutter start includes separate outside and inside roughing and finishing blades. Figure 1 shows an interlocking Cyclo-Palloid cutter head where the center part carries an inside roughing […]

Comparatively simple grippers are used in an increasing number of applications where various part sizes have to be handled quickly and processed reliably. SCHUNK explains.

Those in the automotive industry who want to stay flexible in manufacturing need space for gripper storage stations and changing systems. Gripper changes often cause unproductive auxiliary process times, which reduce efficiency. Therefore the trends in the one-piece series production are heading toward universal plants and flexible automated solutions with multifunctional, servo-electric driven gripping systems. […]

With a history of innovation going back nearly seven decades, this company continues to create leading-edge toolholding and workholding devices.

In chemistry, catalysts are known to accelerate activity in previously stable compounds. This can also occur in the business world, when the right person with the right idea enters the right environment, creating a powerful reaction. Such was the case when Heinz-Dieter Schunk joined the company his father had founded in 1945. “Friedrich Schunk had […]

A global entity, this company’s U.S. operations are playing an important role in the rebirth of American manufacturing, leading the way in thermal processing technologies.

It’s a story of incredible highs and heartbreaking lows, beginning in post-WWII America when a man set out to repair his wife’s pottery kiln. “Harold Ipsen was an engineer with a degree from Brown University,” according to Geoffrey Somary, president and CEO of Ipsen, Inc., “so when his wife asked him to fix her kiln […]

With a vast portfolio of coordinate measuring brands and machines, this company can meet the requirements of the most demanding applications.

Comprised of some of the most well-known metrology brands in the world—including Leitz, Leica Geosystems, and Brown & Sharpe, just to name a few—Hexagon Metrology is a global leader in measurement systems used in a wide variety of applications. “When you have a product portfolio as extensive as ours, there’s really no market we aren’t […]

Using Siemens’ CNC technology on advanced machine tools helps Forest City Gear remain an industry leader worldwide.

Gear manufacturers have always embraced the latest technologies, constantly fine-tuning their operations to eliminate glitches and optimize efficiencies. This has become even more important in recent years, with an economy still struggling toward recovery and competition from around the world becoming increasingly aggressive. In response smart companies streamline their production processes, explore new markets, and […]

The following technical paper examines the effect of cryogenic treatment on the impact behavior of case-carburized En 353 steel.

Case carburized steel (En 353) is the material commonly used for making crown wheels and pinions. The reasons for the frequent failure of these components are due to the tooth bending impact, wear, and fatigue. The modern processes employed to produce high durable component includes cryogenic treatment as a supplementary process to conventional heat treatment […]

A new tooling concept from Sandvik Coromant lowers machining times and costs for hobbing gears, maximizing quality and increasing efficiency.

The transmission of rotating movements without gear wheels is unthinkable. Whether in mechanical engineering, in automotive and transport technology, in railways, in shipbuilding, and even in energy production, without gear wheels nothing would turn anymore. Transmissions also have to be efficient, as does the manufacture of gears. Increasing speeds in all areas, with longer running […]

KISSsoft examines the effects of thin rims for internal gears and their consideration in the calculation of ISO and VDI standards.

In today’s applications it is increasingly important to use space and resource-saving gears. One possibility is to design the rim of internal gears as thin as possible in order to reduce the overall space as much as possible. This goes along with a significantly greater utilization of the material strength for tooth root fracture,. Instead […]

Gear-cutting and finishing solutions from a single source simplify process planning and open up far-reaching synergies. Gleason explains how.

The quality requirements of the automotive industry for gears and transmissions are rising steadily. Compact designs and the trend toward higher-torque engines result in very high performance for manual, automatic, and differential transmissions. At the same time maximum running smoothness is required for driving comfort and the impression of quality of the vehicle as a […]

For remanufactured Fellows gear shapers—including CNC controls, user-friendly software, and custom accessories—call the man with hands-on experience.

According to Jeff Barnes, founder and president of New England Gear, there’s a very good reason why his company is known as the go-to source for remanufactured Fellows gear shapers, custom accessories, technical information, and advice. “For the first 15 years of my career I worked in a gear shop operating these exact machines,” he […]

This company has been designing custom metal cutting products for more than a century, and it offers an extensive lineup of cutting tools for machining gears.

Gear manufacturing is a world unto itself. It has its own language, technologies, and challenges, so it stands to reason that the cutting tools it requires would be highly specialized as well. When seeking expertise in the field of metal removal tooling, there’s one number that gear manufacturers should keep in mind: 1889. “That’s the […]

TSH technology is an advanced induction hardening process that was specifically developed to reduce overall cost and to replace thermo-chemical heat treating processes.

Traditional gear heat treatment involves gas carburizing in batch or continuous furnaces for an extended time, and then oil quenching. The gears are typically low temperature furnace tempered for a minimum of one hour at temperature. After carburization the carbon contents of the case region are typically within the range of 0.7-1.0 percent C. Surface […]

Harnessing Direct Gear Design for asymmetric gears results in low weight-to-output torque ratio and reduced levels of noise and vibration.

In propulsion gear transmissions, the tooth load on one flank is significantly higher and is applied for longer periods of time than for the opposite one. An asymmetric tooth shape reflects this functional difference. The design intent of asymmetric gear teeth is to improve performance of the primary drive profiles at the expense of the […]

The lubricants used to protect gearboxes, especially in high-demand industries such as wind, can become filled with ferrous particulates. The answer? Magnetic filtration.

Wind power is the world’s fastest-growing source of renewable energy that is capable over time of significantly reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Growth is fuelled by technological advancements in design and production allowing large-scale energy production at a competitive cost per kWh. The design and quality of the turbine components will affect its ability […]

Thanks to Reishauer, a new technology is enabling manufacturers to take the lead in expanding market segments, increasing both flexibility and capabilities.

As the owner of Michigan Automatic Turning—which specializes in manufacturing gears and shafts, primarily for off-road and agricultural machinery—Peter Lazic had come to rely on Ann Arbor Gear for its high-end grinding capabilities. When he found out they were planning to close their doors three years ago, he immediately picked up the phone and made […]

A focus on gear manufacturing has resulted in a line of gashers, hobs, and end mills that will help this company’s customers meet their production goals.

A world leader in the metalworking industry since it was founded 73 years ago by metallurgist Philip M. McKenna in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Kennametal has turned its attention — and considerable expertise — to the challenges faced by gear manufacturers, launching a line of gashers, hobs, and solid carbide end mills specifically designed to meet their […]

Today’s measurement technology from Hexagon Metrology is up to the task of inspecting the complex forms of a wide variety of gears and related components.

The history of gears goes back millennia. For a long time it was believed that the differential gearbox was invented in the 13th Century. Then comes the discovery of a wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, where an archaeologist discovered a mysterious gadget that contained a differential gearbox. Today scientists presume the Greeks calculated […]

In this article Hoganas demonstrates some design aspects that can—and need to—be considered when working with powder metal gears.

Powder metal (PM) gears are a cost efficient alternative for machined gears in larger series. Synchronizer gears, oil pump gears, and engine gears are all examples of where the auto industry has converted from wrought steel to powder steel. The next step will be power transmission gears. When designing PM gears, and especially power transmission […]

The Gear Chamfering Robot from Banyan Global Technologies is flexible enough to fit a broad range of gear modules while also meeting daily production requirements.

The Gear Chamfering Robot (GCR) is a portable powerhouse, designed to be flexible enough to fit a broad range of gear modules while also reliably carrying out its duties in daily production. Weighing in at just over 300 pounds, it is dwarfed by competing machines that demand large amounts of floor space, energy, and dedicated […]

Launched more than a century ago, this company has the institutional knowledge that allows it to tackle the most challenging custom gearbox and spiral gear-form designs.

The year was 1884 and the setting was Clerkenwell, in the heart of what was then London’s manufacturing center, when a young man by the name of Stephen Davall opened his watch-making business. He was just 21 years old, and by the time four years had passed he’d already been awarded his first patent. Such […]

Versatile workholding solutions can decrease setup times and increase productivity, allowing gear manufacturers to improve process efficiency.

In order to efficiently manufacture more than 12,000 toothed parts with a wide range of dimensions, having lot sizes of one to 50, one needs to focus not only on the cutting parameters but also developing a strategy for handling the tremendous volume of setup time. The manufacturing engineers at Voith Turbo succeeded in this […]

Recent developments allow the integration of heat treatment into the gear manufacturing line and to synchronize heat treatment with gear machining.

For decades the gear industry has faced the challenge of producing high performance components in a cost-effective manner. To meet quality specifications the components need to be heat-treated, which traditionally takes place in a central hardening shop. However, this separation between machining and heat treatment leads to high costs resulting from transportation and logistics within […]

Lufkin-RMT has developed a tilting pad bearing that’s able to withstand high gear loads and ultra-high surface velocities.

With performance considerations driving gearbox design, pinion (high speed shaft) operating speeds have increased greatly in recent years, often exceeding generally accepted design limits. For high performance gearbox applications, the tilting pad pinion bearings are subjected to both high speeds and high loads. The challenge for the bearing designer is to insure that these high […]

Developer of OILMISER technologies, this company provides clean and efficient fluid handling devices to customers found around the world.

What’s the recipe for creating an innovator? In the case of Dick Gangnon you take one part engineer, with their dedication to creating efficient systems; a smidgeon of the inventor, who’s always dreaming up better ways of doing things; and a dash of the entrepreneur, who is willing to take risks and harness new technologies. […]

Honing and cup wheel superfinishing can be a cost-effective and higher-quality alternative to gear bore and face grinding. Nagel Precision provides the details.

Stringent NVH requirements, higher loads, and the trend toward miniaturization to save weight and space are forcing transmission gear designers to increasingly tighten the surface finish, bore size, bore-to-face perpendicularity tolerances and flatness on the bores, and thrust faces of transmission gears, as illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 2 shows tightening of surface finish tolerances […]

Isotropic superfinishing represents a value adding, low cost option for refurbishing both case carburized and nitrided gears.

Multi-megawatt wind turbine gearboxes operate under demanding environmental conditions including considerable variation in temperature, wind speed, and air quality. It is not uncommon for gearboxes rated for a maintenance free 20-year lifespan to fail after only a few years. These gearboxes experience several types of repairable damage including micropitting or “gray staining,” abrasive wear, foreign […]

The professionals at Muncie Power Products help you to address—and eliminate—gear noise/rattle one step at a time.

Work trucks are getting quieter, driving the need for axillary power to do the same. While gear noise, whine, and rattle are not new, they are more noticeable today since motors and powertrains are quieter. Given that this is the case, we conducted tests to identify and isolate particular features that cause noise. Based on […]

With roots in gear research, this company continues developing new designs for its cutting tools and gear-manufacturing equipment.

Seventeen years ago a group of gear specialists from Taiwan’s government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) recognized a local market need they were equipped to fill. As specialists in designing and manufacturing gears and cutting tools, while also working in the area of heat treating, they realized the need for a high-quality gear cutting tool […]

Already known for its expertise in forging, castings, and a host of gear-manufacturing processes, Custom Gear upgrades with technologies provided by Reishauer and Siemens.

Every manufacturer is faced with the decision at some point: is it time to upgrade equipment and expand my capabilities? The real question, however, is how soon you’ll begin to realize a return on that investment, which is often tied to efficiencies leading to a reduction in the time it takes to manufacture a part. […]

A customer had a problem using their existing gears in a new application. Ontario Drive & Gear provided the solution. Here’s how they did it.

A company approached Ontario Drive & Gear (ODG) concerning a problem they were experiencing with a gear set used in a new application. It was found in a speed-increasing drive for a mobile air compressor application, traditionally coupled to a six-cylinder diesel engine. The company had been using them for years without any problems, but […]

For many gear and spline applications requiring high strength and a smooth surface finish, cold roll forming may be the preferred process.

Powdered metal, extruded, hobbed, rack rolled, or cold roll formed… which manufacturing method produces the best gears and splines? That largely depends on evaluation and selection methods. However, for gear and spline applications with some or all of the following requirements, cold roll forming may be the preferred process: • Optimum tooth strength; • Severe […]

With decades of combined experience in the gear manufacturing market, this company is taking a specialized approach to serving its customers.

Anyone who works in the gear manufacturing industry knows that it is a world unto itself, with its own language, history, techniques, processes, and cast of knowledgeable characters. Anyone who has tried entering that world under false pretenses knows they will be found out, and the charade will not last. In many ways, that understanding […]

Gleason’s newly designed Phoenix 280C bevel gear cutting machine is faster and easier to use than ever before, providing dependability and boosting productivity.

Gleason revolutionized bevel gear production in 1989 with the introduction of the first fully CNC controlled cutting machine, called the Phoenix® 250HC. In 2001 the Phoenix II was introduced, featuring a breakthrough monolithic column design that optimized dry machining, significantly reduced floor space requirements, and greatly improved cycle times. Now, with the introduction of the […]

Close collaboration between industry partners creates efficient, productive, and high-quality solutions for gear milling, according to Sandvik Coromant.

Curved bevel gears are one of the most complex components in mechanical engineering, and special machines and tools have therefore been required to make them. The most significant disadvantages for manufacturers are the cost for expensive machinery, the large amount of programming, and the time involved. In particular, this has big effects on the production […]

Many industries, such as renewable energy, require large parts, so machine shops should review their workholding equipment to make sure they’re up to the task.

Increased demand for large-size parts such as gears and turbine blades, mostly coming from the energy sector, requires machine shops to reinvestigate their clamping methods. Machine tool development kept up with the demand, but the clamping technology is still mostly manual, which is time consuming and requires a lot of maintenance. Chucks for Precision During […]

Established more than a century ago in Texas, this company has evolved into a global entity known for its engineering, manufacturing, and testing expertise.

There are many smallish towns scattered across the country whose roots are interwoven with a particular company, but few of these businesses get their own historical marker. One in Lufkin, Texas, is of particular interest, however. It describes the Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company, which was launched in 1902 by J.H. Kurth, Frank Kavanaugh, Sr., […]

Higher productivity and reduced machine tool life cycle costs can be achieved by considering total system efficiency, as Kluber Lubrication explains.

Empirical studies prove that 70-85 percent of the expected life cycle costs of a machine are determined during its development stage. Synthetic lubricants constitute a valuable contribution in the quest to minimize these costs, as they provide extended relubrication and lubricant change intervals or even lifetime lubrication. At the same time, they contribute to significant […]

When it comes to servicing and remanufacturing broaching machines, there are very good reasons why you should contact the experts—like Broaching Machine Specialties.

Machine tool rebuilders—or those who consider themselves to be machine tool rebuilders—are commonplace nowadays. Rebuilding everything from CNC lathes to machining centers to presses, many of them have no particular specialty or intimate knowledge of any type of machine tool in particular. When the manufacturing sector was running at full capacity, and general machine tool […]

Reverse engineering can be just as demanding as original product development, presenting many of the same challenges. Here’s a checklist for doing the job right.

Reverse engineering is a necessary activity in the modern industrial world. Rather than mount a defense against those who label it “copying,” the author would prefer to point out the long and honored history of the practice of studying a competitor’s product and using the knowledge gained to improve your own products. The largest, most […]

A relative newcomer to the gear manufacturing market, this company is showing its respect for the industry by providing the best cutting tools available.

As someone who enjoys the challenge of learning new things, John Ketterer was delighted by what he found when Engineered Tools Corp. — or “ETC,” where he is director of operations — entered the gear-manufacturing market about six years ago. A trained metallurgist who’d already spent many years working for a carbide manufacturer when he […]

Nikon Metrology takes non-contact multi-sensor 3D metrology to the next level, realizing faster investigation and serial inspection by capturing full-part geometry with a single system.

As components get smaller and more complex, and the demand for high precision rises, manufacturing companies are challenged to produce high-quality products in a shorter time. Relying solely on tactile inspection requires excess overhead in terms of measurement preparation and execution, and it covers only a small portion of the entire part surface. This makes […]

Developing technologies have made Finite Element Analysis software affordable for small gear companies. The following compares FEA calculations with AGMA standards.

Current AGMA standards provide information about the calculations of loose gears and gearbox components, with recommendations primarily based on the “traditional” methods of mechanical engineering. However, new methods for calculations of mechanical engineering components like FEA (finite element analysis) are becoming widespread. Once these techniques were only used by big companies due to their complexity […]

Gleason GMM analytical gear inspection systems with “big gear” capabilities are for gear manufacturers seeking to tap into the hottest industrial markets worldwide.

The winds of change are blowing throughout Asia. Hungry for new sources of clean energy to power their fast-growing markets China, India, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines are all making enormous investments in their wind power capacity. Innovative gear manufacturers like Iwasa Tech Co., Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan, are reaping the rewards. The […]

By learning about its customer’s specific applications, this company is helping gear manufacturers increase productivity with state of the art cutting tool technologies.

With a name meaning “I cut” in Latin, gear manufacturers know they’ve come to the right place when purchasing their cutting tools for milling, turning, and holemaking from Seco. A global entity with gear excellence centers in Italy and France, Seco Tools entered the North-American market with its purchase of Carboloy in 1987, spending the […]

The benefits of going wireless extend far beyond simply eliminating cables, as you’ll learn in this description of the new Marposs M1 Wave wireless gauge.

Cases for the high-efficiency gearboxes produced by Fertigungstechnik Nord in Gadebusch, Germany, are machined from solid castings. By locating all of the bearing bores in the one-piece cast case, the Nord “Unicase” housing eliminates all torque and lateral forces from the sealing faces of the bolted-on cover, producing a compact yet extremely robust gearbox. As […]

With the right design, plastic molded gears can exceed their metal brethren. The following article is a detailed examination of the approach taken by Kleiss Gears.

Much has been written about PEEK polymer’s ability to withstand extreme temperature environments and other key properties including strength and chemical resistance, which make it the material of choice for a number of applications, replacing metal with molded polymer for gears. A recently published case study cited the example of a successful metal to plastic […]

Measuring gear transmission error inside a loaded, running gearbox is the perfect tool for detecting and diagnosing gear noise. Romax Technology explains.

NVH engineers are used to measuring things. Any NVH—for “noise, vibration, harshness”—lab you visit will likely as not be stuffed full of accelerometers, microphones, tangled heaps of cables, and analogue-to-digital data acquisition systems. However, ask the NVH engineer sitting hunched over the computer in the corner to measure transmission error (TE) and they will probably […]