Today I cut my first real gears!! I building the Odds and Ends Hit and Miss and it calls for two small gears, one 20 tooth and one 40 tooth. Both with 32 Pitch. The plans go into great detail how to make the stub arbors and fly cutter for cutting the gears and I must of followed the instruction pretty well because the gear I cut turned out great. Yesterday I cut a practice one out of 6061 aluminum first just to see if I could do it, and it worked great. So today I got out the brass and cut both gears for real and it went very well.I did have a problem. The cutter bit I had built out of a piece of 3/16 drill bit was plenty hard enough for the aluminum but only lasted for three teeth on the brass gears. So I cleaned it up and heated it to a nice straw color with the torch and let it cool on its own. Touched it up to sharpen it and it cut the rest of the teeth on both gears and still sharp as razor. So I guess I got two firsts in today, gears and heat-treating. I love it when things go as planed and work.
Mel
