Improvements in toothed gears and gear drives and in the production of such gears

734,127. Toothed gears. GLEASON WORKS. Oct. 30, 1952 [Oct. 30, 1951], No. 27318/52. Class 80 (1). [Also in Groups XXII and XXIII] The working faces of teeth which extend axially from the body of a gear-wheel are of circular arc cross-section and are formed by an annular cutter rotating about an axis parallel to the gear axis so that the cutter simultaneously acts on opposite faces of spaced teeth, the tooth form being particularly applicable to reduce interference in internally-meshing gears where the difference in numbers of teeth is small. Interference may also be reduced by increasing the gear addendum. As applied to an epicyclic gear train, Fig. 10, a driven gear 84 coaxial with a drive shaft 83 engages teeth 88 on a planetary gear 87, the planetary gear having further teeth 89 engaging a stationary gear 91 and being gyrated by an eccentric on the drive shaft. The teeth are axially tapered (i.e. have part-conical working faces) and to bear the consequential thrust the periphery of the planetary gear is bevelled and rolls on a fixed race 93. A counterweight 94 is provided on the shaft 83. The facial teeth of the externallymeshing gear and pinion shown in Fig. 1 have convex working faces formed by cutting paths 32, 33 arranged so that two teeth are simultaneously cut by one cutter. The plane of the cutting axes passes through the pitch point and is inclined to the pitch plane at the required pressure angle #, formulµ being given interrelating the cutter radii, the pitch radii and the pressure angle. The rotating cutter may have an inclined side cutting profile in order to produce axially-tapering teeth, and is fed towards the work, which is indexed after each cut, in a direction parallel to its axis. Alternatively, part-cylindrical working faces may be obtained by a cutter having a parallel side profile, and such a cutter may be fed at a slight angle to its axis, in which case it may be necessary to cut the teeth one at a time. In another construction, for an internally-meshing gear and pinion pair, axially-projecting teeth having partconical working faces 47, Fig. 7, have additional part-conical faces 48 inclined thereto so as to be hexagonal in cross-section, the additional radial length strengthening the teeth. The pinion working faces are convex while the gear working faces are convex for tooth ratios greater than two and concave for iatios less than two. The cutter has two sets of teeth 58, 61 with inclined side cutting edges which respectively cut the working faces 47 and the faces 48 of an adjacent pair of teeth, a spaced pair of teeth also being simultaneously cut. A further set of cutting teeth 66 is provided to remove the fin left in each tooth space after the two cutting operations of the teeth 58, 61. The teeth 66 constitute also roughing blades removing stock in advance of the teeth 58, 61 and may, if desired, be driven at a different speed. Formulµ determining the cutter radii are given. It is illustrated, Fig. 9 (not shown), that the gear addendum of an internally-meshing gear and pinion may be increased to prevent interference when the tooth ratio approaches unity, the increase involving an increase in the pressure angle. In the cutting operations described cup-shaped abrasive wheels may replace the bladed cutters