Manufacturing of straight bevel gears was in the past only possible on specially dedicated machines. One type
of straight bevel gears are the gears cut with a circular cutter with a circumferential blade arrangement. The
Machines and the gears they manufacture have the Gleason trade name Coniflex@. The cutters are arranged
in the machine under an angle in an interlocking arrangement which allows a completing cutting process. The
two interlocking cutters have to be adjusted independently during setup which is complicated and time
consuming.
The outdated mechanical machines have never been replaced by full CNC machines but there is still a
considerable demand in an high variety of low quantities of straight bevel ears. Just recently it was discovered
that it is possible to connect one of the interlocking straight bevel gear cutter disks to a free form bevel gear
generator and cut straight bevel gears of identical geometry compared to the dedicated mechanical straight
bevel gear generator. A conversion based on a vector approach delivers basic settings as they are used in
modern free form machines. The cutter is mounted to a shaft which is connected to the cutter spindle.
Additional features like reverse cutter mounting, vector feed and root limited roll finally enabled the straight
bevel cutting process on modern free form machines.