[davidperry3]

Does anybody have a favorite place to get gears specifically worm gears?
McMaster seems expensive.

[keebler303]

sdp-si.com
boston gear

A couple to try.
Matt

[R.DesJardin]

sdp-si.com
boston gear

A couple to try.
Matt

Yep, those are my picks too.

[Wog]

MSC had them as a non-catalog item. Not sure about the pricing, but maybe you can use one of their 30% off, etc. promo codes

[kevinro]

I have had decent luck with these guys:

Quality Transmission Components - Your Source for Quality Power Transmission Components

They seem to be less expensive on many things. Finding the non-metric parts can be a little tricky. They mostly do metric.

[davidperry3]

Thanks everybody. I couldn't get sdp-si.com to bring up anything but it looks like Boston gear is the main supplier behind the scenes.
Not that I want to do it but does anyone know what the form tool looks like for cutting a worm gear and worm? I know a standard gear cutter looks like a slitting saw but how are helical and worm gears done? It seems like it would be done vertically with some sort of special end mill.

[flick]

It's done with the same kind of cutter. The 4th axis is inclined to the angle of the helix, and the path is programmed to the same angle. That should work anyhow... I've only actually done helical gears on a horizontal conventional mill with a universal table geared to the dividing head, but the above should acheive the same effect.

ETA: You can thread worm gears on a lathe.

[davidperry3]

I was surfing Youtube and found this:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fps0OR1eF_s]Cutting helical gear - YouTube[/ame]

This might just be some guy with a v-bit but if this has an involute profile to the bit you could do gears with complex curves. Just knowing what these bits are called could answer lots of questions.

[flick]

Cool, that does look like an involute. I wonder where ya get 'em.

Answered my own question before I even finished the post:

Involute Gear Cutters,Gear Roughing Cutters,Rack/Worm Milling Cutters

[Scott_M]

Art Fenerty The guy who came up with Mach3 has a pretty cool program called Gearotic for making gears. here is a link to a discussion here at the Zone. And a link the the gearotic page as well. As I recall it is designed to use regular endmills as long as they can get into the root.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/gearot..._gearotic.html
Gearotic Motion

[rowbare]

Art Fenerty The guy who came up with Mach3 has a pretty cool program called Gearotic for making gears. here is a link to a discussion here at the Zone. And a link the the gearotic page as well. As I recall it is designed to use regular endmills as long as they can get into the root.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/gearot..._gearotic.html
Gearotic Motion

There is also a new feature that will let you make a cutter for cutting smaller gears. John Stevenson discusses it here: Small gear cutters. - The Home Shop Machinist & Machinist's Workshop Magazine's BBS

bob

[davidperry3]

There is also a new feature that will let you make a cutter for cutting smaller gears. John Stevenson discusses it here: Small gear cutters. - The Home Shop Machinist & Machinist's Workshop Magazine's BBS

bob

Ok that IS AWSOME! I guess I need to find grinding stones for the spindle to make these "End mill gear cutters". I have an oven so heat treating isnt a big deal.

[philbur]

Its work in progress. Currently the main problem is lack of stength in the cutters for smaller module gears. The coding for generating involute curves is impressive but the rest of the cutter geometry needs more work.

Phil

Ok that IS AWSOME! I guess I need to find grinding stones for the spindle to make these "End mill gear cutters". I have an oven so heat treating isnt a big deal.