And for someone like me ,that would take days to get right . Although a cnc is not a replacement for all your tools, it certainly has its place .
Can’t wait to get one
Can’t wait to get one
Living better through CNC
Making wooden gears has always been a hassle for me. It involved transferring the pattern to my stock, drilling the shaft hole on the drill press, and tedious cutting on the scroll saw. Invariably, I spent a lot of time sanding the gear, after cutting, to clean up and correct errors caused by less than perfect saw work. It would require a minimum of 30 minutes to produce something like this 17-tooth ratchet gear.
Today, I embraced the new technology to make my gear. I designed it with V Carve Pro by drawing one gear tooth, and then using the circular array tool to generate the other 16 teeth, followed by placing a 1/4” shaft hole dead center.
I cut out the ratchet gear with a single tool path, and production of the entire gear took — wait for it — 52 seconds. Less than one minute to cut the gear and drill the hole! Plus, every tooth is perfect, and the hole is dead center.
Life is definitely better.
Today, I embraced the new technology to make my gear. I designed it with V Carve Pro by drawing one gear tooth, and then using the circular array tool to generate the other 16 teeth, followed by placing a 1/4” shaft hole dead center.
I cut out the ratchet gear with a single tool path, and production of the entire gear took — wait for it — 52 seconds. Less than one minute to cut the gear and drill the hole! Plus, every tooth is perfect, and the hole is dead center.
Life is definitely better.
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Wow that’s very impressive Gary 
Gary , I wish you had some pictures of this gear from start to finish . I keep finding myself gravitating to it . The more you look at it, the more you realize just how labour intense and intricate this would be to build .
Pretty much a project for the master carpenters
I wanted to make a large gear using some of the basic methods that pattern makers used to make the molds for large cast iron gears. It was extremely difficult to get the diameter exact so the spacing of each tooth could be fitted to the wheel. I routed the inner part of the rim pivoting from the center, but found I couldn't adjust it (fine enough) accurately enough to do the outer diameter. I ultimately made a jig to spin the wheel on my table saw to creep up on the right diameter. To place the 50 teeth, I had to make 100 teeth...50 to mount and 50 for spacers. Although it can't be used as a working gear...It now sits on my fireplace as a display.
These are all the photos that I took during the build.
These are all the photos that I took during the build.
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Not a working gear? Who the heck cares ,it’s a work of art !
Thanks for the pics Gary
Btw, that’s a great trick with the table saw
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