How to make a wood gear?

Question

I want to know how I could make wooden gears at home without the need of a CNC or a laser. What tool should I use, what are the steps to making one?

@grfrazee Here I was about to refer OP to woodgears.ca, but I had a sneaking suspicion that I should check your link first. If you want to avoid clicking around on the website, here's the actual article on how to make plywood gears. — Doresoom, May 09 '16 at 16:54
@Doresoom - I clicked the "Planetary Gears" link after reading through the article you linked. Don't do it!!! Unless, of course, you have a lot of time to spend wandering down a fascinating mechanical rabbit hole! — FreeMan, May 10 '16 at 16:01
@FreeMan Haha, yes! Epicyclic drivetrains are really interesting. It's a bit more familiar to me already though, since vibration-based drivetrain condition monitoring is what I do for a living. Although Matthias' gear ratio calculations can be made a bit simpler (in my opinion) by using the superposition method. :) — Doresoom, May 10 '16 at 16:33

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 10 '16 at 08:23

All you really need is a template and a way to shape inside corners.

Shaping the inside corners can be done with a file, a strip sander, a bandsaw,...

To create one you make the template of the gear you want glue it to the wood and then remove wood up to the line. With a bandsaw you can first cut out the outside circle and then cut out the spurs. you could also use a drill to remove most of the material between the teeth.

How to make a wood gear?

1 Answers1