Spur Gears & Helical Gears

Brad Foote Gear Works can manufacture spur and helical gears within the following limits:

• Hobbed tooth form to about 140" diameter
• Ground tooth form to .75 DP (3" tooth height, 4" space width, larger space widths with single flank grinding) and 120" outside diameter
• Hobs from 24 to .75 DP
• In-house carburizing to 70" diameter x 76" high or 30" diameter x 92" high
• In-house Contour induction hardening 4 pitch and coarser to 120" diameter
• Staff trained in non-destructive testing, magnetic particle inspection, nital etch, and ultrasonic inspection to ensure the highest material qualities
• In-house shot peening

The Brad Foote team is committed to producing the highest quality reasonably priced spur and helical gearing in the world. We've teamed with a select group of material providers, ensuring that your gear starts out "right." Significant investment has been made in our manufacturing equipment, ensuring high productivity and minimal manufacturing losses. Our in-house heat treating provides metallurgical properties to AGMA grade 3, the highest AGMA grade, when necessary. Gear teeth are finished on the latest state-of-the-art form grinders to achieve quality levels to AGMA Q15 (A2).

Material selection

Our material suppliers provide us with the most cost-effective material to start your job. We stock vacuum degassed bar stock, cast ingot and forged bar to 31" diameter. Our material sources can provide rolled rings and closed die or near net forgings to cost effectively meet your specifications.

Manufacturing Equipment

Brad Foote Gear Works has invested heavily in manufacturing equipment to reduce our manufacturing costs while maintaining our high quality levels.

Our main shop targets low volume critical parts. CNC turning and grinding equipment ensures that manufacturing costs are low while the part quality is high. Our universal fixturing and large selection of hobs means we probably have everything required to manufacture a low volume job before the order is placed.

In late 2005, Brad Foote added cell number 5 for higher volume customers. We currently have a 24" gear cell, two 40" gear cells and two pinion cells. CNC equipment and dedicated fixturing reduces part change over time, maximizing the productivity of these cells. The cells include turning, drilling and hobbing equipment to convert raw material to finished blanks ready for heat treatment or finished through hardened parts.

Heat Treatment

Our state-of-the-art heat treat facility provides grade 3 heat treat to our customers that require it. The material properties are certified on a LECO CNC micro-hardness tester. The strict attention to detail required to achieve these quality levels is applied to every heat treat load.

Tooth to tooth induction hardening is also available to our customers. To keep up with increasing quality and production demands, Brad Foote built its own CNC-controlled induction hardening machine capable of processing 120" diameter gears.

Gear tooth finishing

In January 2006 Brad Foote installed tooth grinder numbers 7 and 8. These form grinders, capable of AGMA Q15 (A2), all have on-board inspection to ensure the part is correct before it leaves the machine. All of the grinders are capable of grinding each flank independently when the gear sees different loads in each direction of rotation. Most of the grinders are capable of point to point interpolation, allowing for parabolic profile modifications as well as the more standard linear and circular modifications. The machines are verified regularly with our Zeiss Gear Pro Coordinate Measuring Machine to ensure the charts our customers receive accurately depict the micro geometry and quality level of their parts.