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Making a clock and so have quite a few gears to cut all out of 1/2" thick plywood. I made my toolpath in my CAM and all is good to go but the problem is the endmill.
Since the teeth are very close together (8”OD gear with 64 teeth) I must use a 1/16” endmill but the cutting end of these endmills is less than 1/2" so I will not be able to cut through the 1/2" plywood.
Any ideas how to go about it?
Just another way to look at making them
.... turn blanks, include a timing hole with the centre hole. Have gear area stepped in (say 1/8" each side, tooth is 1/4" wide)
.... place onto a jig to machine the teeth profile
.... alter root of tooth to allow largest possible cutter, even to drilling the radius before cutting tooth form.
1.5mm x 15mm endmills are not something unusual. You can buy them cheap on eBay/AliExpress.
Also, as Superman suggested, you could "tweak" the root of the tooth profile to accomodate a slightly larger endmill.
I had the same challenges for some gears I cut on the CNC and used a 1/4" compression bit to rough the shape followed by a 1/8" bit for the finish cut (1/2" BB material). They came out great.
Attachment 490800