Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

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Tillies in a Bottle
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Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by Tillies in a Bottle »

Hello Home Machinist Community,

I'm glad I finally joined instead of just observing.

I am about to take a crack at fixing the bevel miter gears on my milling machine that are doing what I'll call grinding.
These are the gears that turn the elevating screw on the knee of my Nichols horizontal milling machine.
as far as I can tell they've been in this state for a while, certainly for the couple of years I had the machine. What I'm seeing is that the knee is very stiff, and will clack over every tooth between the bevel gears. It's certainly not smooth and easy like it should be. I hardly use the knee for this reason, not wanting to break any teeth.

Anyway I'm going to go about fixing that finally.
I got the knee off and I can see two things right away.
First that the smaller gear that the handcrank would drive is backed off, so that the two gears are not fully meshed.
The other thing is I'm seeing something like burs or spots on the teeth where the metal has smooshed over.
Now that the knee is off the machine and with nothing loading it I'm seeing that the smaller gear will bind a little at one spot. That's the spot where I marked with a little white dot.
The gears
The gears
I'm going to first make a bronze bushing to go around the smaller gear's shaft and bring the gears in mesh. I'll then see how it behaves at that point and re-assess the cause of any interference. Maybe I'll stone off some burs if I think they're on the teeth and up to no good.

I know that the knee on a bridgeport is essentially the same, with bevel gears turning the elevating screw. Maybe someone here on the home machinist had a similar problem and can say something about how he went about repairing it.
In any case I'll be posting as I go through with the repair.


the knee
the knee
An exploded drawing of the knee from a variant of my machine
An exploded drawing of the knee from a variant of my machine
Bob D.
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by Bob D. »

I suggest removing both gears. Clean them up to remove all grease and oil. Use Dykem or a marker to paint up all the teeth. Then spend some time at the bench with a file and work your way around each tooth. The Dykem removal will show your progress. The important thing is to get rid of high spots. Don't go nuts with the file. Just light accurate strokes following the tooth profile to even things up and establish as much uniform contact area as you can. The important thing is getting those high spots as that is what can break a tooth under load. Clean everything again. Put the gears together and get the mesh the best you can. If you put Prussian blueing on one gear you can check the contact area after rotating a bit. The bluing will transfer to the clean gear where there is contact and lighten up on the blued gear where it contacts.
Since nothing is broken you should be able to really improve it. You don't need or want a super tight mesh.
Good luck.
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NP317
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by NP317 »

And please let us know what you discover is causing the general binding of the knee movement.
RussN
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Tillies in a Bottle
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by Tillies in a Bottle »

Thanks Bob, I'll give it a shot, and definetely have some photos of the progress allong the way.
pete
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by pete »

Setting the engagement depth between the two gears is similar but a lot less fussy than doing the same on an automotive ring and pinion. Bob's trick of using Dykem to check for high spots and how the teeth are meshing is a good one that I've used a few times. Maybe the assembly drawing isn't that clear or I've missed it, but there doesn't appear to be any method of easily setting or adjusting for tooth engagement. Another trick I've used once you do get the damage filed off and you know there then correctly engaging is to use paper of various thicknesses between the two gears to set the gear lash clearance. You can get paper in increments of .001" on up to set whatever tooth clearance you want. With yours it looks like shims might be required behind each gear to reset them to take up any wear. Also check your bushing to shaft fit where the shaft that turns the gear with the knee crank bears against. If that's sloppy you'll never get a decent and smoothly operating set of gears. It's an often neglected area for lubrication and might have created a large part of the problem.
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Tillies in a Bottle
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by Tillies in a Bottle »

Thanks Pete, yes there is some chance that the bearing fit is at least involved in the interference I'm seeing. The "crank shaft" rides inside two bronze bushings, an outer one closer to the crank and an inner one closer to the gear. It looks to me that I would go about setting the tooth engagement by measuring the position of the inner bearing when gears are turning well, and then take it out again and locktite it there. It looks to work well when its sticking out from the casting around 5/16".
The bearing as it determines the gear mesh
The bearing as it determines the gear mesh
The funny thing is that the shaft was turning freely (aside from the gear interference) before I removed it but once it went back in, it was binding pretty severely. A good part of my time was spent stoning and polishing the shaft and looking for any burrs in the bearings, and getting the whole area flushed out. I checked the shaft for run out and I saw a difference of .006 between one end and the other.
Shaft on the lathe showing .008 run out in the same area where gear teeth are interfering.
Shaft on the lathe showing .008 run out in the same area where gear teeth are interfering.
Aside from that, I went through the small gear's teeth and found the couple of teeth that were binding as they meshed. those couple of teeth lined up with the high spot of the run-out on the shaft. I put some hi-spot dye on the large gear and saw that the tops of the teeth were not making contact, but only the flanks. I'm sure it's a sin to file the flanks on Involute gears, but that did it. It took way more filing than I think sensible too, but the binding spot went from wrench tight to hand tight, though not yet as free and easy as the rest of the gear's travel.

There is still more going on with the knee, and I'll really see it once it all goes back on. the thrust bearing on the elevating screw seems to need a spacer in order to do it's job. The lack of this spacer might just be the cause of this whole mess. Without it, the whole weight of the knee, saddle, table etc is resting on the gear teeth squishing the two gears together. maybe it was enough to bend the crankshaft that .006 I measured.
The knee. There may be a spacer that has been missing for as long as I had the machine.
The knee. There may be a spacer that has been missing for as long as I had the machine.
Attachments
smaller gear with Hi-spot on the flanks
smaller gear with Hi-spot on the flanks
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Harold_V
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by Harold_V »

The tops of teeth should NOT make contact. Filing the face of teeth to ensure that they do is a mistake.

I question your assessment that the bearing location is intended to create proper lash of the gears. That makes no sense.

H
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kl7sg
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by kl7sg »

I agree with Harold_V.

Backlash is typically set with shims on the gear shaft.
The shims allow the gear to move closer to the mating gear -- reducing the backlash.

Also, filing the face of the teeth will remove the case hardening of the teeth and they will wear much faster.
Have a nice day,

Mike
pete
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by pete »

In this case it seems like the small gear is fixed to the shaft using a taper pin. No doubt they chose that because there's no real room to fit a key way plus it's cheaper and easier to do. So that gear has basically a fixed position on the shaft. Without having all the parts in front of me, it appears that any shimming has to be done by placing them behind the larger gear to set what ever clearance and tooth position you think will work best. Is there any evidence someone has been into that area before you bought it making repairs or adjustments Tillie? If so they may have not reassembled it properly and left out any shims the factory used as your questioning in that picture. If that's the case then it would account for the severe gear damage and produce much higher wear on the shaft support bushings. It's obviously tough to diagnose causes and the reasons behind that damage with a few pictures, but you might end up having to replace the bushings and either sleeve the shaft or replace it as well.

I also fully agree with Harold and k17sg about the tops of the gear teeth not being your contact point, that would be the weakest area of each tooth and very likely create even more wear up to breaking off gear teeth. That's a pretty high load area on the gear teeth when you add up the length of the knee crank, gear reduction and weight of the knee, Y axis, table vise, part weight etc verses the torque needed on the crank handle. Afaik most (all?) gearing is designed and has the tooth gullet shape they do for a roughly mid tooth contact patch on there flanks. That allows each tooth to smoothly roll into and out of contact with the minimum of friction as they enter and leave the contact between each tooth on the mating gear. I also doubt shaft run out can be correctly measured that way by holding and rotating it in a lathe. You have issues of the chuck introducing errors if it wasn't 100% perfect and none of them are. Yes you can dial it in to be perfectly concentric radially at the chuck end, but the shafts axial alignment is also part of the measurement. Better to spin it on a pair of V blocks if you've got them.
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Tillies in a Bottle
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by Tillies in a Bottle »

Thanks for all the input everyone, I appreciate the help.
My goal in filing the top of the teeth was to remove any high spots, I thought there might have been burs that were contacting the other gear. Hi-spot dye was showing me only contact on the flanks of the teeth. I used those marks to find high spots in the section of the gear's travel where there was binding.
No, I wasn't trying to make the tops of the gears contact.

As for the lash of the gears, I had a look at the drawing from the manual again, and I do see something in between the gear and the bushing. I suppose that might be a shim?
page from the nichols manual illustrating the knee
page from the nichols manual illustrating the knee
When the mill got to me, there were no shims between the back of the gear and the bearing.

The bushings in here are just bronze plain bearings.
The inner bearing is identical to this
The inner bearing is identical to this
Does anyone recommend what I ought to use in making a shim? I have some bronze I expected to need for this project.

And speaking of shims, I got to the shop today and turned up a shim for bringing the thrust bearing on the elevating screw into contact with the knee casting.
hard to see but there's a spacer now which raises up the thrust bearing.
hard to see but there's a spacer now which raises up the thrust bearing.
That bearing is now up against the casting, where I assume it must be, in order to do anything. The gears are still turning smoothly, with a slight moment of something where the binding spot was. I'm going to mount the knee back on the mill and see how it behaves this weekend.
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Tillies in a Bottle
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by Tillies in a Bottle »

pete wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:14 pm Is there any evidence someone has been into that area before you bought it making repairs or adjustments Tillie? If so they may have not reassembled it properly and left out any shims the factory used as your questioning in that picture.
I'm sure the machine went though several hands. There is a dealer's tag from St. Louis, but I got this from someone in New York. I don't see evidence of repairs or adjustments at least in the knee.

The shim that I was questioning though was between the thrust bearing on the elevating screw and the knee casting. I don't see that in any litterature I've found.
kl7sg
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Re: Fixing grinding/interference on bevel gears

Post by kl7sg »

I think it just shows the pin location.
It sounds like you are ok.
Have a nice day,

Mike
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