Anyone have any experience cutting mycarta gears? I'm thinking that
if might be fun to cut replacement gears for the older geared Emco
Maximat headstocks. I know little about cutting gears in general so it
might be a good opportunity to learn. Thoughts anyone?

Thanks, Charles

Anyone have any experience cutting mycarta gears? I'm thinking that
if might be fun to cut replacement gears for the older geared Emco
Maximat headstocks. I know little about cutting gears in general so it
might be a good opportunity to learn. Thoughts anyone?


I trashed a micarta gear in the head of an EMCO mill like what goes on the
Maximat. Replacement would be about $110, IF a replacement was available. I
took the job of cutting a replacement as a good learning project. I made the
replacement out of aluminum and it works fine. It's a lot of fun, but it took
several evenings of study, tool making, and set up. If your time is important,
consider going to a gear catalog and buying a generic gear with compatible
diameter, tooth count, and pitch angle. Modify it by trimming the thickness and
pressing in a suitable hub.

And, yes, I know that the micarta gears are used to provide a sort of fuse
which will fail before you overload the machine to the point of turning the
whole gearbox into shrapnel.