I am a college student trying to learn to cut some gears on a Haas VMC. I am cutting teeth in a blank using a form cutter held in a side milling arbor on the spindle. The work piece is mounted on and indexed by the 4th axis. I am having trouble getting the speeds and feeds right.
I have a 3" diameter carbide side mill/form cutter (involute, 20 degree pressure angle) and the gear blank I am cutting is a piece of untreated 4140 steel (5/8" thick round), I am using full coolant flow during the cut etc. I can get 50 rpm with 1.3 inches per minute feed to work OK but it takes 7 hours just to cut a 28 tooth gear that way. I have 12 gears to cut and some are much larger. I must have something wrong. I know industry would use a gear hobber. We don't have a gear hobber but the gears aren't really the point, learning to use the VMC is.
Have I done the speeds and feeds wrong? Can anyone help me with some advice on speed, feed and depth of cut that should work as a starting point for this work? I would appreciate some advice, it just seems to me that the work is taking way too long given that this is a full sized production machine.
Pat