Gears and Grounds

Use this printable spur gear template and gear rack template to determine the pitch (or module) and pressure angle of your unknown gear

Nearly every shaft diameter has a corresponding standard keyway width and depth – this calculator helps you find it. While a designer is free to specify any keyway they wish, straying from the standard option is likely to increase the cost, time, and complexity of the part. Many keyways are milled directly into a shaft or broached into the corresponding bored holes.

Nearly every shaft diameter has a corresponding standard keyway width and depth – this calculator helps you find it. While a designer is free to specify any keyway they wish, straying from the standard option is likely to increase the cost, time, and complexity of the part. Many keyways are milled directly into a shaft or broached into the corresponding bored holes.

Our guide on how to remove and repair your Jacobs Super Chuck - you can fix most problems in about 15 with a bit of cleaning, lubrication, and basic tools. With proper maintenance, your drill chuck can last generations with reliable performance.

Our modern world is impressive; it gives us instantaneous information through the Internet and this connects us for better or worse. But how about connecting across languages? English sources only show a fraction of what the world knows

Our modern mechanical world stands on the shoulders of the ancient navigators, locksmiths, clockmakers, and millwrights. While many of their relics and inventions are probably lost, here we piece together the mechanical devices that have survived the test of time

Few professional books are as ubiquitous as the Machinery’s Handbook. This book can rightly be called a machinist’s bible, and not just for its super thin pages. Clocking in at nearly 3000 pages, the 31st edition Machinery’s Handbook adorns a special corner of my desk.

What is Galling? Galling is a form of cold-welding that occurs in threaded components under high pressure, and may cause the threads to seize. Galling is caused by the asperities (high points) of one component puncturing the protective oxide layer of another, and then transferring material

Gears don’t slide, they roll. If you mesh two gears together and rotate one, the two contacting surfaces will roll, and not slide-off of each other. The difference may seem semantic but it has a huge impact on the life and performance of the gear, and it all comes down to friction.

All Ideas need to start somewhere - graphical communication is key to recording and making the most of your ideas. In a modern technical world we're so quick to get on a keyboard and type, but the real value of ideas starts when you put your pencil (or pen!) to paper and start somewhere. We've come a long way from clay tablets, but the principles stay the same...

Rudolph Diesel is known as the father of the Diesel Engine, but how did we get to the modern Diesel Engine and Diesel Fuel as we know today? Born in 1858, Rudolph Diesel designed and patented the first Diesel Engine, originally claiming the engine could burn, "any kind of fuel, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous"

The name "Hydraulic Oil" is somewhat of a misnomer as the root of the word hydraulic, "hydro," means water. While water was the original hydraulic fluid, any fluid that conveys power may be considered a hydraulic fluid. 

With the thousands of uniform screw options available now, it's hard to imagine a time with both more, and fewer options. Thankfully Joseph Whitworth standardized a system for the modern thread, giving a worldwide, universal playing field for interchangeable fasteners.

Anything that moves has friction and wear: your car, your bike, and the machines in your shop. Tribologists study the interaction of sliding surfaces specifically in friction, wear, and lubrication. Tribology has established the principles and designed the oils that keep our mechanical world moving

American Gear Manufacturers Associate (AGMA) sets the standards for gears, and provides technical resources to the gear-making community

CAD and machine tools have been rapidly increasing in capability and decreasing in cost, so the ability to mill, route and 3D-print gears is in reach to a larger audience. So how do I get started? Here are some simple answers:

Christian Schiele is credited with the first Hobbing Machine patent filed in 1856 - a machine capable of making "toothed wheels" (spur gears) and "oblique wheels" (bevel gears). Despite the innovation in design, there was never a physical prototype...

Gears in a Nutshell Gears have a special place in the mechanical world, they make things go, move, or rotate. They are also hidden from our view as they need a case to hold their distance precisely together while rigidly on their shafts in a bath of their favorite lubrication.

Screws, nuts, washers, and other fasteners are designed for their intended use. Most of the time, what you have in your garage will work great for a quick built - but the NASA Fastener Guide shows us the importance of things like diameter, length, pitch, and much more...

5000 years of mechanical innovation and progress - researched, documented, and compiled to highlights the pioneers that made the largest contributions. Our modern world is standing on the shoulders of inventors dating back thousands of years, and it all starts with gears.

Here is a guide on How to Use a Dividing Head, along with the necessary dividing head indexing charts (pdf). Dividing heads (also called indexing heads) are machine tools used to provide controlled and repeatable rotation to a tool or workpiece, usually as an accessory to a milling machine, lathe, or grinder.

Arthur I. Jacobs designed a great drill chuck and it has been in use for over 100 years. One of the parts inside the chuck is intentionally broken. It may be the only item you own that works and is broken at the same time.

Screws are defined by three measurements: diameter, pitch, and length. Measure the diameter across the threads and the length from underneath the head of the screws (unless it's a flat-head, then measure the whole length of the screw.) For the pitch, mark out 1 inch of threads and count the number of threads in that length.