At Federal Gear, we’re surrounded by gear manufacturing equipment, and most of us have been working in the industry for years. As an outsider, you might be confused by some of the terms we use in the industry.
Because we want to be transparent, and help all our prospective customers understand exactly what goes on at our facility, we want to define some of those common terms—so you know what’s going on, and can talk shop with the rest of us:
- Hobbing. Hobbing is a machining process where we make a progressive series of cuts using a helical-shaped cutting tool called a hob.
- Form milling. Form milling is another process we use to shape gears, but here, we use a form cutter to travel along the length of a tooth to produce the correct depth and shape.
- Finishing. After the initial manufacturing process, there may be small imperfections in the gear, so we use abrasive operations like grinding and honing to make sure the gear meets the required tolerances.
- Torque. Torque is a measurement related to the gear’s rotation in response to a given force.
- Pitch circle. The pitch circle is the term we apply to a conceptual circle of a gear, which rolls against the pitch circle of a connecting gear.
- Clearance. The distance between the top of a gear to the bottom of a connecting gear’s groove is known as “clearance.”
- Diametrical pitch. This one’s simple—it’s the number of teeth per unit volume.
- Full depth. A gear’s full depth is the sum of the addendum and the dedendum, or the distance between the outermost and innermost circle of a gear.
- Gear ratio. This is the ratio of teeth in a larger gear to the number of teeth in a smaller gear.
- Face width. We use the face width as a measure of the length of a tooth, parallel to the gear axis.
If you’re interested in learning more about the gear manufacturing process, or if you have a project you’re ready to get quoted, be sure to contact us today!