We make thousands of splined shafts per year and many customers do not seem to know that. Just the other day we were giving a shop tour and someone commented how many splined shafts were on carts in our shop during various processes and they could not believe it. We informed them that splines and gears are probably the most predominant product we actually make here! We do spline rolled parts, shaper cut, hobbing, and gear cutting though EDM. If you are looking for a Good Machine Shop! Look no more. Metalmite uses 6 axis lathes and 5 axis mills to stay current with technology. We are a full-service machine shop located in Rochester, Michigan, we manufacture, modify, and repair prototype and production parts for a wide variety of clients. What makes us different? For over 45 years we’ve pursued manufacturing perfection with a precise mix of quality, service, delivery and price! This winning combination has helped us earn certification as a Prime contractor for the United States Government, as well as a trusted supplier in many other industries. We use 3,4,5 and 6 axis CNC machining to keep us on the cutting edge of the market. With in-house Wire EDM and CNC grinding we are able to offer full service completion of your project. We are a true single source vendor and one stop shop if you need us! For more information on spline shafts and gear cutting look below. This is gear cut information found on Wikipedia:
Hobbing
Hobbing is a method by which a hob is used to cut teeth into a blank. The cutter and gear blank are rotated at the same time to transfer the profile of the hob onto the gear blank. The hob must make one revolution to create each tooth of the gear. Used very often for all sizes of production runs, but works best for medium to high.
Machining
Spur may be cut or ground on a milling machine or jig grinder utilizing a numbered gear cutter, and any indexing head or rotary table. The number of the gear cutter is determined by the tooth count of the gear to be cut. To machine a helical gear on a manual machine, a true indexing fixture must be used. Indexing fixtures can disengage the drive worm, and be attached via an external gear train to the machine table’s handle (like a power feed). It then operates similarly to a carriage on a lathe. As the table moves on the X axis, the fixture will rotate in a fixed ratio with the table. The indexing fixture itself receives its name from the original purpose of the tool: moving the table in precise, fixed increments. If the indexing worm is not disengaged from the table, one can move the table in a highly controlled fashion via the indexing plate to produce linear movement of great precision (such as a vernier scale). There are a few different types of cutters used when creating gears. One is a rack shaper. These are straight and move in a direction tangent to the gear, while the gear is fixed. They have six to twelve teeth and eventually have to be moved back to the starting point to begin another cut. A popular way to build gears is by form cutting. This is done by taking a blank gear and rotating a cutter, with the desired tooth pattern, around its periphery. This ensures that the gear will fit when the operation is finished.
Shaping
The old method of gear cutting is mounting a gear blank in a shaper and using a tool shaped in the profile of the tooth to be cut. This method also works for cutting internal splines. Another is a pinion-shaped cutter that is used in a gear shaper machine. It is basically when a cutter that looks similar to a gear cuts a gear blank. The cutter and the blank must have a rotating axis parallel to each other. This process works well for low and high production runs.
Finishing
After being cut the gear can be finished by shaving, burnishing, grinding, honing or lapping.[1]
Grinding
grinding is a process of finishing the surface of tool so as to make it use for various operations abrasive materials are used for grinding process. this types mostly used.