In recent years, Professor Tang Jinyuan’s team has explored the generalization of cutters for the processing of single piece and small batch face gears, and proposed the slotting and planing processing of face gears. Fig. is the principle of planing a face gear and its machine configuration.
Whether it is slotting or planing, the requirement of cutter profile is not high, so conventional planer or milling cutter can be used. The key core of the machining can be divided into two steps: one is to make the cutter simulate the involute of the profile wheel through movement, that is, the cutting edge point of the cutter must have a series of discrete positions along the involute of the profile wheel, and this series of discrete positions of the cutter is called the basic cutter position; the other is that both the basic cutter position and the face gear need to rotate, and meet the meshing relationship between the profile wheel and the face gear. The reason why these two processing methods are feasible is that the profile wheel can be regarded as a cylindrical drawing body, so the reciprocating motion of the cutter along the surface gear radial can simulate the discrete involute surface of the profile wheel. The efficiency of these two machining methods may be lower than that of gear shaping, but for the rough machining of small batch face gears, it has practical significance, avoids the design and manufacturing of special cutters, and reduces the manufacturing cost of cutters.