Gears & Gear Cutting (Workshop Practice Series 17)

This book actually surprised me, it is literally brimming over with solid and detailed information. When opening the package I thought "Hmm, this looks pretty thin." But in that thin package is one of the most detailed yet easy to follow tutorials I have read. The text is practical, concise, and hands-on oriented. The first part of the text covers gear theory in a adult way, no over simplified grade school explanations, you won't feel like you're being talked down to. The same treatment is used for the gear cutting theory portion, and then practical portion about cutting and jig building. It has excellent pictures and diagrams, that add to the text instead of just being pretty to look at. Too often How-to books feel like wasted money to me. They provide little information that could not be read off of Wikipedia or a patched together tutorial. Or they are fluff and pictures with little "meat and potatos" information. Not this book. If you want to make your own gears, I am confident that this is the book for you. If I wanted to learn more on the subject, I would have to go to an advanced upper level college text, which this book has laid a stable foundation for doing if I need to go that route.

Buy this gear book, not the other one. The other looks to be newer, but I preferred this older book of the same name. This is for someone that is serious about gears and wants an easy to understand, days read.

This is the most informative book on gear cutting that I have ever read. Even though the "Machinists' Handbook" covers gears in more precise mathematical detail, this book was written to educate the hobby or amateur machinist on how to both design and make several types of gears (spur, worm, bevel). The author educates the reader on gear theory, and then on how to make the gears on inexpensive hobby lathes/mills. In addition, he covers how to make gear cutters inexpensively, and use them to make the gears. The language he uses is simple and concise, yet he covers gear theory enough so that the reader has advanced knowledge of the fundamentals necessary to design thier own gears and gear trains. I have no negative criticism to offer of this book - it was exactly what I was looking for, and my money was well spent.

Like many of you, I got the book because I have a gear problem, and also I have nearly enough equipment and skills to fabricate a solution. I got here by following up a link on a blog, seeking more technical info. Although this book makes a good backgrounder, the years have rendered the application side a bit obsolete. Since the book was first published, CNC technology has migrated from commercial shops down the the hobbyist level, displacing a lot of the equipment shown into the vintage category. For instance Law barely mentions helical design and fab, unless you want to say a worm gear is helical. This common feature would be difficult or impossible for vintage equipment, but trivial for (4th axis) CNC equipment available to even a budget oriented hobbyist. Second, the book shows a method or two for fabricating you own tools, to avoid high costs of procurement. Several internet blogs have detailed more sophisticated approaches, rendering Law's approach "quaint". Also since the book was published, the cost of ready-made tools has dropped significantly and are widely available mail-order from China, et al.

I was afraid this would be too rudimentary. It starts off that way but it is a nice, straightforward approach. Not a lot of overly technical explanations but it does not gloss over any of the technical topics - they are just explained with normal shop talk. Anyone looking to make their own gears or learn a bit more about gears would probably benefit from this. Focuses a bit on the home shop type person and machines they would have access to when it comes to the 'how to make' section - ie dividing head on a mill or even a lathe. If you already know how to make gears, probably not worth it. Does not cover hobbing or shaping. Does cover bevel gears.

Very well written and easy to understand. The text is accompanied buy clear, excellent photos and drawings. Mr Law takes a very complex subject and by starting at the basics, he builds upon each concept and clearly makes the geometry and execution of gears and gear cutting a subject that a complete novice like me can comprehend. As someone who is teaching himself the machining trade, I find this book invaluable. Thank you Mr Law for sharing your skills and knowledge with us!

I began reading this book entirely confounded and a little intimidated by designing with gears. After reading through the theory I am now designing with gears for the first time and have found Mr. Law's book both clear and helpful. The theory is thorough but brief with all of the equations you need for design and enough background information to give a complete picture. The only drawback of this buy is the quality of the binding, which is weak even after reading through it only once.

I'm new to machining and have been buying a lot of books on the subject. This book is well written and includes illustrations and should be a big help in learning how to cut gears. Would recommend.

I was new to Machining him but I wanted to learn how to machine my own Gears. This book goes through all the Machining techniques and calculations to calculate your own Gears. In my opinion this book is everything you need to know!

Ivan Law schafft es mit ein paar einfachen Formeln und Zeichnungen die Grundlagen für Zahnradgetriebe zu vermitteln. Hut ab! Am besten ist die Bauanleitung für das Heureka - Tool. Habe ich sofort gebaut (obwohl ich mir meine Zahnräder kaufe). Aber die Leute die Dampfmaschinen bauen haben doch auch elektrischen Strom zu Hause? Klasse Buch.

Small is usually smart! A great book that opened new horizons of thinking.

Piccolino come dimensioni ma il contenuto è preziosissimo per chi vol capire soprattutto nella pratica.

Very good book and great projects to help you.