Machining of rocklobster gears!

Hope im posting in the right section, chasing some info on the machining side of the gears. Now ive looked at many builds and pics, but curious as to how people machined up the gears.

Have they machined the large gear away on one shaft and bored out the other gear to fit the new gearset?

Or have people just cut the gear off either shaft and aligned them to be welded?

Hope it makes some sort of sense.

Cheers, cal

They may share but I suspect that those that make rocklobsters may keep this close to their chests!

Kirkynut

i think there welded gears but im not entirely sure.

as kirky said this might be a closely guarded secret.

I have seen one of these boxes where I had to do a TIG repair on the Ali casing.

Not sure if the unit was a "Genuine" Rocklobster but think so.

This unit had undergone some fairly serious machining, bear in mind the machining will have needed to cut through hardening etc, and gears are often made of harder steels etc, so a hobby Lathe itsn't really going to do a superdooper job.

It looked then as though there had been a proper weld prep done and the 2 units pressed into each other and then TIG welded up (and very nicely too) looking at the welds these I think prob used dissimilar type of TIG rods, and also there was very good penetration but the heat soak had been controlled well, which is a credit both to the welder and also it was prob welded in a water bath.

Bear in mind you have machining work AND High grade TIG welding done cleverly, too much heat and you will dmage the teeth etc and get distortion, if its not dead square it will prob blow up
Yes its a possible DIY job, but not anywhere near a simple one, your Machine mart lathe and clarke MIG are not going to do it

Its prob a case when all said and done that when you look at the work skill and knowledge and experince that goes in to these its not worth trying to DIY it and bugger it up

And no I am not interested in TIGging up gearsets

Nige

I remember pictures being posted a few years back, I'm pretty sure that I've seen them done with the gears to stop them shearing. A quick Google image search finds this:

forum.difflock.com/viewtopic.php?t=17231...681a29280710bfc9ece3

Awesome, thought many people wouldnt want to give up their special ways, could give it a crack, working at a power station gives me a range of good equipment and tools and my brother has extensive tig welding experience, not so much with gears though. See how we go. Otherwise i have plenty of machine shops around with the experience to knock up a set, surely they play with gears all the time. 3 coal powerstations and 3 gas you would think so