THE BEVEL GEAR

So far most of the gears you’ve learned about transmit motion between parallel shafts. However, when shafts are not parallel (at an angle), we use another type of gear called the bevel gear. This type of gear can connect shafts lying at any given angle because you can bevel them to suit the angle.

Figure 6-5, view A, shows a special case of the bevel gear-the miter gear. You use the miter gears to connect shafts having a 90-degree angle; that means the gear faces are beveled at a 45-degree angle.

You can see in figure 6-5, view B, how bevel gears are designed to join shafts at any angle. Gears cut at any angle other than 45 degrees are bevel gears.

The gears shown in figure 6-5 are straight bevel gears, because the whole width of each tooth comes in contact with the mating tooth at the same time. However, you’ll run across spiral bevel gears with teeth cut to have advanced and trailing ends. Figure 6-6 shows you what spiral bevel gears look like. They have the same advantage as other spiral (helical) gears—less lost motion and smoother, quieter operation.