Bevel Gear Manufacturing - Highfield Gears

Bevel Gear Manufacturing

Used in a wide range of applications, bevel gears are common in machinery and gearboxes alike. Here at Highfield Gears, we have cutting-edge machinery and the capabilities in house to create bespoke bevel gears for your industrial bevel gearbox.

Our expert team has a range of cutting-edge equipment at their disposal, including gear cutting and grinding machines, CNC machines and load test facilities.

This equipment, combined with their expertise allows them to create new bevel gears that will have the correct speed ratio, strong corrosion resistance and are able to deal with heavy loads.

Our commitment to using high-grade materials and world-class equipment allows us to manufacture and create a broad selection of gears such as spur gears, helical gears, worm gears and double helical gears. As well as manufacturing individual gears, we also have the capabilities to repair, recondition or upgrade a variety of gearboxes, up to 18 tonnes, such as planetary gearboxes, worm gearboxes, extruder gearboxes and helical bevel gearboxes.

Get in touch today for more information about how we can help your business or organisation with its individual gear components or industrial gearboxes. We have worked with countless businesses, such as Liberty Steel and Tata Steel, in the UK, in areas such as Glasgow, Newcastle, and Sheffield, and further afield in Europe, so no matter where you are we can help – simply call us on 01484 531 010 or email us at sales@hgi-uk.co.uk.

What Is A Bevel Gear?

Broadly, the definition of a bevel gear is a cone-shaped, cylindrical type of gear that has the ability, because of the shaft angle and intersecting shafts, to transmit power between units. There are two main types of bevel gear - the straight bevel, which doesn't feature helix angles and spiral bevel gears (sometimes referred to as zero bevel gears) which do have helix angles.

Straight bevel gears have straight gear teeth on their wheels, whereas a spiral bevel gear is an angled gear with spiral lines. The tooth shape on the spiral bevel gear is curved slightly which lengthens the gear tooth contact.

Our experts at Highfield Gears have seen the popularity of straight bevel gears wane in recent years thanks to a combination of outdated, unused manufacturing processes and the fact that they cannot be polished. In contrast, spiral teeth and spiral gears, such as the spiral bevel gear, are deemed far superior because they can be polished, which reduces noise and vibrations. Both excess noise and vibrations are unwanted features, especially in gearboxes that help power machinery that is sensitive to movement and sound.

Another specific variation of this gear is the miter gear or the spiral miter gear. Like its close relative, the spiral bevel gear and straight bevel gear, the miter gear has tooth contact on two rotational axes that intersect. However, unlike the aforementioned bevel gears, miter gears cannot increase or decrease speed, and that is because the number of teeth on the gear wheels are the same. Also, because the shaft can be set at non-perpendicular angles, you can create angular miter gears.

Since our founding in 1927, we’ve been producing bevel gears using the two most common manufacturing methods – the Gleason method and the Klingelnberg method. The main difference between the Gleason and Klingelnberg bevel gearing method, for making bevel gear sets, is the different tooth shapes that are used. While most gearboxes feature gears that are made using the Gleason method, our experts at our Huddersfield-based gear centre can also create them using the Klingelnberg method.

The Application Of Bevel Gears, What Are They Used For?

Bevel gear units are used by hundreds of businesses, who take advantage of the perpendicular shafts and axis rotation that ensure quality and efficiency, to make a myriad of products. To ensure good thrust load, the compact design of this gear usually comprises steel. It is made into a conical shape and is available in a variety of pitches, bores, and module sizes.

In general, these types of bevel gears are used in a wide range of processes and applications, such as:

  • Food packaging equipment.
  • Wielding positioning equipment.
  • Cooling towers.
  • Gardening equipment.
  • Machining tools such as mills and lathes.
  • Food-canning equipment.

Straight Bevel

Straight Bevel

This type of bevel gear is the simplest unit form and has a straight tooth profile that points towards the top of the cone. They are far easier to make than their spiral counterparts but cannot produce inward thrust nor can their teeth grind after they have been subject to heat treatment. Straight bevel gear units are used in lower speed rotation applications. They are not used in a wide variety of applications that require the transmission of large forces.

Spiral Bevel

Spiral Bevel

Spiral bevels are more complicated shapes and feature a wheel with curved teeth which spiral toward the top of the gear. The contact of the bevel gear is more smooth because the teeth roll on and off each other, rather than moving from one tooth to another. This transmission in the bevel gear units, between two intersecting shafts, is much quieter and better at dealing with heavier, more intense loads. Also, noise and vibration are vastly reduced because the aforementioned teeth contact ratio is much higher. Unlike their straight counterparts, the spiral gear can grind teeth after heat treatment and can therefore be made into high precision gears.

Our Bevel Gear Manufacturing Capabilities

As you can see, there are many variations of this gear type, from straight bevel gears and spiral bevel gears to miter gears, straight miter gears and spiral miter gears. We’ve also seen that there are two different ways to manufacture these types of gears - the Gleason method or the Klingelnberg approach.

Once you begin working with us, you’ll soon realise that, by choosing Highfield Gears, you’ve made the right choice. From our commitment to customer service, to our detailed precision and dedication to quality, we have everything in place to fix your gears or gear units at a speed that is matched by few, no matter what material we’re using.

Throughout the process, we’ll make sure you’re kept in the know by way of reports, photography, and at the end of the process, we’ll offer up a table of recommendations that gives you insight into how you can proactively improve the performance of your gears. We’re also proud to offer an emergency service that is available for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We know that gear problems don’t occur in a linear, predictable fashion. If anything, they happen at the most inconvenient times! So, when something does happen, at say 3 am on a Tuesday or a Saturday afternoon, you can rest assured knowing our team will be ready and waiting, regardless of the time, to get your gearbox back up and running by providing superior bevel gear manufacturing.

What Is A Bevel And What Does 'Bevelled' Mean?

What Is A Bevel And What Does 'Bevelled' Mean?

Essentially, a bevel means the edge of a structure that isn’t perpendicular to the faces of the piece and is usually a very small 45-degree angle ground onto a surface. It is, in fact, a word often found in carpentry and can also be referred to as chamfer. When you create a bevel cut for a gear, be it a straight bevel or spiral bevel, you’re extending the amount of tooth contact between the two gears. These units on the intersecting shafts roll from one tooth to another which allows for a smoother, and quicker, transition of power to the machine.

Features Of Bevel Gear Design

Features Of Bevel Gear Design

  • Able to reduce shaft speeds and increase torque through a right angle.
  • Better flexibility and traction in spiral bevel gears, and spiral miter gears, in particular.
  • Smooth, reliable transmission because they have no offsets, therefore, won’t slip during operation.
  • Minimum backlash thanks to dependable tooth-to-tooth traction.
  • Reduced risk of overheating.
  • Minimal repairs or replacements needed because of smooth transitions between teeth.

Bevel Gear Uses

Bevel Gear Uses

Bevel gears can be found in all sorts of applications, from the humble hand-drill, which uses a 90-degree bevel gear, to vast industrial gearboxes, such as the ones we can repair, recondition and upgrade here at Highfield Gears, that power vast pieces of machinery by transmitting power to two axles spinning at different speeds. All of the bevel gears we mentioned, be it the spiral miter gear, straight miter gear, straight bevel gear or spiral bevel gear, are used in various applications. However, the most widely used type, in our experience, is the spiral bevel gear made using the Gleason method.

How Does This Type Of Bevel Gear Work?

Fundamentally, bevel gear units, such as the ones we manufacture, repair, and recondition here at Highfield Gears, are designed to transmit rotational motion between two intersecting shafts.

In most cases, they are designed to be positioned at a 90-degree angle, however, in reality, they can be positioned at any angle depending on the shaft power needs. Bevel units will always feature an equal amount of teeth on both cones making their gear ratio 1:1. This 1:1 ratio means that the input and output drive is going at the same speed, this is sometimes referred to as a direct drive.

Contact Us At Highfield Gears Today

If you work in industries that use industrial gearboxes which feature bevel gears and are looking to work with a gear manufacturing company that understands the component parts of industrial gearboxes, just as much as the transmissions themselves, then get in touch with Highfield Gears today and call us on 01484 531 010 or email us at sales@hgi-uk.co.uk. As we mentioned, we have helped well-known businesses in the UK, such as Ineos, with their industrial gear needs and this, combined with our decades of experience, makes us confident we can undergo bespoke gear solutions so that your machinery is back up and running in no time.