Gears are crucial components to many machines, so you want them to last a long time, and hold up under pressure—ideally forever. But no matter how expertly you’ve designed or manufactured a gear, it’s going to have a finite lifespan. Gears suffer from wear and tear like any other physical object, so how long, exactly, …Continued

Gear manufacturing can take a variety of forms, since there are many materials and processes that can be used, and many types of gears that can ultimately be produced. Gear hobbing is just one important process you should know about. Hobbing is a way to cut and shape gears, used with a specialized type of …Continued

One of the most important choices you’ll face in gear manufacturing is what kind of material to use. There are dozens of choices, including cast iron, bronze, and ceramic, but all of them come with a share of advantages and disadvantages. Most notably, each material offers a different hardness and different wear loss; the harder …Continued

In our world of modern technology, it’s easy to forget our engineering roots. Gears are such a integral component of today’s machines, from space shuttles to smartwatches, it seems like they’ve been around forever. But gear manufacturing had a definitive beginning, and one that would set the stage for the growth and evolution of the …Continued

Bevel gears are a special class of gear, where the axes of two different shafts intersect, but the faces of each gear are shaped like cones. In most applications, bevel gears are mounted on shafts that are 90 degrees apart, but other angles are also possible; regardless, the pitch surface is always a cone. Bevel …Continued

If you’re creating a gear for a complex machine, or for a series of products you’re manufacturing, you need to make sure the gear you get is high quality. Unfortunately, that’s a vague phrase that could have a variety of implications, so let’s dig a little deeper: what is it, exactly, that makes a gear …Continued

The spur gear’s instantly recognizable shape and basic function make it the typical “gear” most people equate with the generic term. However, spur gears are just one of several types of gear used to keep our machines in operation. Their simplicity makes them highly useful for a wide range of tasks, but they aren’t good …Continued

Gears have been used in machines for more than a thousand years, with prototypical gears being used as early as 700 AD. But with the advancement of other technologies, could gears and gear manufacturing ever become obsolete? It’s hard to guess exactly how technology is going to develop in the future, so it’s irresponsible to …Continued

3D printing has become a go-to method of production and testing for engineers, hobbyists, and amateur inventors. Since gears are typical components of machines with moving parts, it’s natural to think that 3D printing gears to serve your prototype machine is the most reliable and cost-efficient method to see if your design will work. 3D …Continued

If you’re looking for a gear manufacturer, you might see various manufacturers discussing how much experience they have in the game, both in terms of business history, and in terms of collective engineering experience among their top employees. Intuitively, you can guess that more experience is a good thing, but why, specifically, does it matter …Continued