Making Worm Gears. Harder Than You Might Think

G'day everyone,

I have made countless spur gears on the channel, mostly because they are relatively easy to make with a dividing head and the correct gear cutters. However they are not very space efficient when it comes to making large gear reductions i.e. 40:1 or greater. This is where me might turn to a worm gear. For a worm gear, the gear reduction equals the number of teeth on the worm wheel. A 60 tooth worm wheel will yield a 60:1 reduction and a 60 times greater mechanical advantage.

However making them is not as straightforward as you would think. Worm wheels are not simply spur gears that have been tilted back in the dividing head to create a slant. They are a helical gear and they need to be hobbled.

There are videos on YouTube where people use taps to make "worm wheels" which look like worm wheels, but are not the correct profile and I doubt would work correctly under any proper load.

Without a proper hobbling machine, I will need to free hob the gears using the lathe.

#diy #machining #wormgear

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profile...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressur...

Timestamps
0:00 - Intro & Gear Theory
4:27 - Making The Worm Screw
9:39 - Making A Gear Cutter Arbor
12:23 - Making A "Not A Worm Gear"
17:24 - Making A Gear Hob
21:19 - Free Hobbing Helical Worm Gears