Hobbing

Hobbing is a machining process for gear

cutting, cutting splines, and cutting
sprockets on a hobbing machine, which
is a special type of milling machine. The
teeth or splines of the gear are
progressively cut into the material (a flat,
cylindrical piece of metal) by a series of
cuts made by a cutting tool called a hob.
A hob — the cutter used for hobbing.

Hobbing is relatively fast and inexpensive

compared to most other gear-forming
processes and is used for a broad range
of parts and quantities.[1] Hobbing is
especially common for machining spur
and helical gears.[2]

A type of skiving that is analogous to the

hobbing of external gears can be applied
to the cutting of internal gears, which are
skived with a rotary cutter (rather than
shaped or broached).[3]
Process

Spur gears on horizontal CNC gear hobbing machine

Spur gears on horizontal CNC gear hobbing machine

Hobbing uses a hobbing machine with

two skew spindles. One spindle is
mounted with a blank workpiece and the
other holds the hob. The angle between
the hob's spindle (axis) and the
workpiece's spindle varies depending on
the type part being manufactured. For
example, if a spur gear is being
produced, the spindle is held at the lead
angle of the hob, whereas if a helical gear
is being produced, the held at the lead
angle of the hob plus the helix angle of
the helical gear. The hobbing features for
gears are straight, helical, straight bevel,
face, crowned, worm, cylkro and
chamfering. [4] The speeds of the two
spindles are held at a constant
proportion determined by the number of
teeth being cut into the blank; for
example, for a single-threaded hob with a
gear ratio of 40:1 the hob rotates 40
times to each turn of the blank,
producing 40 teeth in the blank. If the
hob has multiple threads, the speed ratio
is be multiplied by the number of threads
on the hob.[5] The hob is then fed up into
the workpiece until the correct tooth
depth is obtained. To finish the operation,
the hob is fed through the workpiece
parallel to the blank's axis of rotation.[4]

Often during mass production, multiple

blanks are stacked using a suitable
fixture and cut in one operation.[5]

For very large gears, the blank may be

preliminarily gashed to a rough shape to
make hobbing more efficient.
Equipment

A horizontal hobbing machine

A horizontal hobbing machine

Hobbing machines, also known as

hobbers, come in many sizes to produce
different sizes of gears. Tiny instrument
gears are produced on small table-top
machines, while large-diameter marine
gears are produced on large industrial
machines. A hobbing machine typically
consists of a chuck and tailstock to hold
the workpiece, a spindle to mount the
hob, and a drive motor.[6]

For a tooth profile which is theoretically

involute, the fundamental rack is straight-
sided, with sides inclined at the pressure
angle of the tooth form, with flat top and
bottom. The necessary addendum
correction to allow the use of small-
numbered pinions can either be obtained
by suitable modification of this rack to a
cycloidal form at the tips, or by hobbing
at a diameter other than the theoretical
pitch. Since the gear ratio between hob
and blank is fixed, the resulting gear will
have the correct pitch on the pitch circle
but the tooth thickness will not be equal
to the space width.

Hobbing machines are characterized by

the largest module or pitch diameter it
can generate. For example, a 10 in
(250 mm) capacity machine can
generate gears with a 10 in pitch
diameter and usually a maximum of a 10
in face width. Most hobbing machines
are vertical hobbers, meaning the blank
is mounted vertically. Horizontal hobbing
machines are usually used for cutting
longer workpieces; i.e. cutting splines on
the end of a shaft.[7]

Hob

A gear hob in a hobbing machine with a finished gear.

The hob is a cutting tool used to cut the
teeth into the workpiece. It is cylindrical
in shape with helical cutting teeth. These
teeth have grooves that run the length of
the hob, which aid in cutting and chip
removal. There are also special hobs
designed for special gears such as the
spline and sprocket gears.[6]
The cross-sectional shape of the hob
teeth are almost the same shape as
teeth of a rack gear that would be used
with the finished product. There are slight
changes to the shape for generating
purposes, such as extending the hob's
tooth length to create a clearance in the
gear's roots.[8] Each hob tooth is relieved
on its back side to reduce friction.[9]

Most hobs are single-thread hobs, but

double-, and triple-thread hobs are used
for high production volume shops.
Multiple-thread hobs are more efficient
but less accurate than single-thread
hobs.[10] Depending on type of gear teeth
to be cut, there are custom made hobs
and general purpose hobs. Custom made
hobs are different from other hobs as
they are suited to make gears with
modified tooth profiles. Modified tooth
profiles are usually used to add strength
and reduce size and gear noise.

Common types of hobs include:

Roller chain sprocket hobs

Worm wheel hobs
Spline hobs
Chamfer hobs
Spur and helical gear hobs
Straight side spline hobs
Involute spline hobs
 Serration hobs
Semitopping gear hobs

Uses
Hobbing is used to make the following
types of finished gears:

Cycloid gears (see below)

Helical gears
Involute gears
Ratchets
 Splines
Sprockets
Spur gears
Worm gears

Hobbing is used to produce most

throated worm wheels, but certain tooth
profiles cannot be hobbed. If any portion
of the hob profile is perpendicular to the
axis, the hob will not have the cutting
clearance generated by the usual backing
off process and will not cut well.

Cycloidal forms

For cycloidal gears (as used in BS978-2

Specification for fine pitch gears) and
cycloidal-type gears, each module, ratio,
and number of teeth in the pinion
requires a different hobbing cutter, so the
hobbing is ineffective for small-volume
production.

To circumvent this problem, a special

war-time emergency circular arc gear
standard was produced giving a series of
close-to-cycloidal forms which could be
cut with a single hob for each module for
eight teeth and upwards to economize on
cutter manufacturing resources. A
variant on this is still included in BS978-
2a (Gears for instruments and clockwork
mechanisms. Cycloidal type gears.
Double circular arc type gears).
Tolerances of concentricity of the hob
limit the lower modules which can be cut
practically by hobbing to about 0.5
module.

History
Christian Schiele of Lancaster England
patented the hobbing machine in
1856.[11] It was a simple design, but the
rudimentary components are all present
in the customary patent drawings. The
hob cutting tool and the gear train to
provide the appropriate spindle speed
ratio are clearly visible. Knowledge of
hobbing likely precedes his patent within
the watchmaking trade.
Many manufacturing museums include
examples of manual gear hobs that
helped to produce gears prior to the 19th
century. Along with these completely
manual gear hobs will be samples of
some of the first semi-automated gear
hobs, and finally examples of more
recent technology that demonstrates the
fully automated process that modern
gear hobs use to produce gears today. A
few producers of gear hobs also have
interesting literature on the history of
gear hobs, including details about how
modern gear hobs can produce
thousands of gears in a single hour.
See also
List of gear nomenclature

References
1. American Society for Metals, Cubberly &
Bardes 1978, p. 334.
2. Drozda et al. 1983, p. 13‐34.
3. Weppelmann, E; Brogni, J (March 2014),
"A breakthrough in power skiving" (http://g
ear.epubxp.com/i/262216) , Gear
Production: A Supplement to Modern
Machine Shop: 7–12, retrieved
2014-03-11.
4. Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 769.
5. Jones 1964, p. 289.
6. Todd, Allen & Alting 1994, pp. 59–60.
 7. Endoy 1990, p. 6.
8. Jones 1964, p. 288.
9. Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 768.
10. Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 770.
11. "The Original Hobbing Machine" (https://e
volventdesign.com/blogs/history/hobbing
-machine-patent) . Evolvent Design.
Retrieved 2021-01-17.

Bibliography

American Society for Metals; Cubberly,

William H.; Bardes, Bruce P. (1978),
Metals Handbook: Machining (https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=5hCY6Gkb
GBUC) , vol. 16 (9th, Illustrated ed.),
ASM International, ISBN 978-0-87170-
007-0.
Degarmo, E. Paul; Black, J T.; Kohser,
Ronald A. (2003), Materials and
Processes in Manufacturing (9th ed.),
Wiley, ISBN 0-471-65653-4.
Drozda, Tom; Wick, Charles; Benedict,
John T.; Veilleux, Raymond F.; Society
of Manufacturing Engineers; Bakerjian,
Ramon (1983), Tool and Manufacturing
Engineers Handbook: Machining (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=uiM5
6pDFdqsC) , vol. 1 (4th, illustrated ed.),
Society of Manufacturing Engineers,
ISBN 978-0-87263-085-7.
Endoy, Robert (1990), Gear hobbing,
shaping, and shaving (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=_cH57g5T7acC)
(Illustrated ed.), Society of
Manufacturing Engineers, ISBN 978-0-
87263-383-4.
Jones, Franklin D. (1964), Machine
Shop Training Course (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=Na-netw27uUC)
(5th, Illustrated ed.), Industrial Press
Inc., ISBN 978-0-8311-1040-6.
Todd, Robert H.; Allen, Dell K.; Alting,
Leo (1994), Manufacturing Processes
Reference Guide (https://books.google.
com/books?id=6x1smAf_PAcC) ,
Industrial Press Inc., ISBN 0-8311-
3049-0.
Further reading
Burstall, Aubrey F. (1965), A History of
Mechanical Engineering, MIT Press,
ISBN 0-262-52001-X, LCCN 65-10278
(https://lccn.loc.gov/65-10278) . At p.
303, "The hobbing process conceived
in 1856 by Christian Schiele became a
practical one for production work as
soon as involute-shaped gear teeth
superseded the cycloidal type in the
1880s, since the involute hob, like the
involute rack, has straight sides (for
the worm is a form of continuous rack)
so that to make a hob from a worm all
one has to do is to gash some teeth in
the worm so that it will cut the blank as
it is rotated."
GB 185702896 (https://worldwide.esp
acenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX
=GB185702896) , Schiele, Christian,
"Machinery for Cutting Nuts, Screws,
and Toothed Wheels", published 6
December 1856, issued 5 June 1857;
pre-1890 patent not found at
eSpaceNet (see British Library remarks
(http://www.bl.uk/help/find-early-britis
h-patents) ); see Google Books reprint
(https://books.google.com/books?id=
EOBOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA9-IA234&lpg
=PA9-IA234&hl=en&f=false) which is
missing sheets 1 and 2.
Woodbury, Robert S. (1958), History of
the Gear-Cutting Machine: A Historical
Study in Geometry and Machines (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=YxEV
AAAAMAAJ) , MIT Press,
ISBN 9780262730013, OCLC 1689960
(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/16899
60) . At p. 105, "But it had been
recognized that the worm was a form
of continuous rack and all that was
necessary to cut gears with it was to
provide cutting edges on it — to make
a hob (Fig. 45). Teeth had been cut by
this method probably for the first time
by Ramsden in 1768."
Woodbury, Robert S. (1972), "History of
the Gear-Cutting Machine.", Studies in
the History of Machine Tools (https://ar
chive.org/details/studiesinhistory00ro
be) , Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT
Press, ISBN 978-0-262-73033-4,
LCCN 72006354 (https://lccn.loc.gov/
72006354) , OCLC 609185 (https://ww
w.worldcat.org/oclc/609185)
Dudley, Darle W. (1969), "The Evolution
of the Gear Art", Published by,
American Gear Manufacturers
Association, Washington D.C., Library
of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-
78509
Radzevich, Stephen P. (2017), "Gear
cutting tools: science and engineering",
CRC Press, Second Edition,
 ISBN 9781138037069. Chapter 1
provides a very comprehensive and
contemporary history of Gear Cutting
Tools in Chapter 1.

External links
Gimpert, Dennis (January 1994), "The
Gear Hobbing Process" (http://www.ge
artechnology.com/issues/0194x/gimp
ert.pdf) (PDF), Gear Technology, 11 (1):
38–44. Has schematics of hobbing
machines in figures 8–10.

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