All cut...

Well, all the gear teeth have been cut...



Tomorrow I am going to try and start popping the teeth waste out.  I think that will go faster and be easier on my arm than the sawing.  I am really looking forward to this step.

Things to note about this gear.

* I've mentioned before that the gear may not work because it has a few slight problems.  If that is the case, I'm not too worried.  I had always expected that the first gear would be a throw away.  It does not mean that I am not going to try and make it work just that I am prepared for it to not work.

* I need to get better about having a nice smooth, finished surface before I start trying to mark out and cut the gears.  My biggest problem with cutting was that the lines marking the cut points were not nice and clear.

* A divider (compass) works perfectly for laying out the teeth.  An article a few years back in the Antiquarian Horological Society had suggested some alternate techniques.  Quite honestly, the techniques are overly complicated when the divider method works just fine.  I have to disagree with the author on some of his suggestions.

* Overall, it takes about 15 minutes to cut 4-5 teeth.  This means that if I was a full time smith and my arm was able to take the sawing, the largest gear could have been cut in about 5 hours.  I am sure if I was practiced and once again in the proper shape, that time may be cut down to about 3 hours.  I think that this technique was probably the most likely technique used.

* I went through about 3 saw blades to cut this one gear.  However I think the steel may have been partially hardened in a few spots.  If I was using period materials, the saws would not be as high of quality but the gear would be wrought iron which is very soft.  I have some wrought iron and I may do some testing to do a comparison.

* In the future, from my new experience, I would expect to be able to produce the gears much faster.