Involute gears can be produced in the home workshop using any of the well established industrial processes. For example, gears can be cut with rotating multi-tooth form cutters or with single-tooth fly cutters, they can be shaped with a reciprocating single-point tool, or with a bit of effort they can be hobbed. Form cutters are not cheap, and eight are required to produce the full range of teeth, and a dividing head of some sophistication is also necessary. Shaping and fly-cutting also require a dividing mechanism, and these processes consume considerable time when making gears with large numbers of teeth - and making the cutters can also be problematic. Form cutters can also be used to produce bevel gears, but making cylindrical helical gears is probably beyond their use in a lathe attachment. All these factors, and a fascination with the hobbing process, resulted in the decision to make a hobbing attachment for the ML7- albeit that hobs are also not cheap, and they cannot be used to make bevel gears.
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