Gear hobbing is a specialized process that involves gear cutting, spline cutting, and sprocket cutting. It uses a milling machine as its central equipment where it is used for cutting the spline or teeth using a series of cuts using a hob. This process is commonly used for fabricating spur gears and helical gears, because of its ease of use and cost-effectiveness. To learn more about gear hobbing and understand how the process work, please refer below.
How the Process of Gear Hobbing Works
Step 1: Equipment Check - Before the process starts, the fabricator should always check the equipment for any mechanical issues. It also includes the synchronization of the rotating gears for the workpiece and the hob.
Step 2: Equipment Preparations - The machine used for the process has two skew spindles. One is for holding the gear blank and the other is for the hob attachment. In this step, the machine is prepared for the hobbing process.
Step 3: Configuring the Equipment - After checking and preparing the equipment configuring it is the next step. The spindles are set at an angle from each other. They are set depending on the type of teeth to be set on the gear blank.
Step 4: Setting Up for Cutting - Both of the spindle shafts are rotated proportionally with the hob cuts on the gear blank. Allowing them to properly rotate to make the right gear teeth that should be cut on the gear blank.
Step 5: Hob Cutting the Right Depth - The hob will then be applied to the gear blank to make the correct tooth depth. To make sure the right depth is reached.
Step 6: Finalizing the Cut - As the final step, the hob is then run through the gear blank’s axis of rotation.
Step 7: Repeating the Entire Process - Finally the steps are repeated until the right number of teeth is reached.