Spline morphology

Not that I know of, but I think that's more because most volume commercial splines aren't made using a regular shaper, but with machines purpose built for machining gears.

They are a form of involute gear tooth, but I think they have modified it for a stronger root strength by changing pressure angles at the pitch line (I want to say 20 degrees above the pitch diameter and 40 degrees below?). I don't know that there is really one standard for these, since you can pick and choose involute profiles to fit your application (speed, loading, lubrication, space available, static or sliding,...) except for applications where you want to mate up with other standard parts (like a PTO). At this point there may be metric module spline profiles as well as US customary (diametral pitch) splines, I wasn't paying a lot of attention when I was around these 20 years ago.

Yes, for commercial gear milling and gringing equipment like hobs, gear shapers, and gear grinders.

The best way is to know the actual specification of the spline and know how to make up a gage from that for making your own tooling.

For a one-off, probably by making a scale image on a mylar template and comparing to the cutter using an optical comparator (a magnified shadow projector). For production use maybe by using a cnc dresser on a grinding wheel to transfer the geometry directly on a dedicated tool grinding machine. Since they are so similar to gears, it is likely that commercial tooling is simply ordered by specification to fit the hob or gear shaper used to machine the spline. A google search on "spline hob" turned up tons of hits. I recall a broach for internal splines also, which had the advantage of forming the shape in one pass if the part geometry allowed.

If you have the mating part you may be able to use a shadow of the spline to make a gage and use that to refer to when grinding your tooling. (Kind of like using a comparator but without the magnification).

Involute gear tooth !! ha ha ha Luddite ! Splines dont roll on each other like gears do !

You'll never learn this stuff unless you develope your imagination .

If they dont travel much , I drill between the male and female and push in some 1/8 inch dowel pins . Like i did this evening on a Dodge Stratud crank/pulley . The idiots had an interference fit pulley with 2 shoulders to figure on the pulley ! They were the same distance ! So i lathed out the outer shoulder on pulley , sanded down the crank a bit , so i still had to force pulley on with about 1000 lbs , anti-siezed the pulley , pushed it on , then drilled between the pulley /crank , inserted a 1/8 inch dowel pin and . Safety wired the bolt .... Made a plate with 3 holes for 3/4 bolts i allready had , cut the heads to fit in the crank pulleys holes . Then a sleeve , the bolt can lock onto the crank , and i have a home made pulley puller ....( i broke a HF slide hammer trying to take it off , initially )

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

================ One source of spline specs is the SAE [Society of Automotive Engineers] handbook. There are several series shown including straight, and involute. Be warned that these are *suggested* for automotive use, generally indicating that tooling such as broaches can be purchased as something other than a total "special."

also see

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

I've seen splines on motorcycle clutch plates/housings that look like gear teeth. Reportedly, a non-square shape has a self-centering effect. Maybe they're involute because cutters that shape are available, and there's no reason for them not to be?

Jordan

Thanks for the link, its informative! It's technically involved if perfect fit is specified and likely difficult to achieve commercial quality in the home shop for a one of application.

I thought that to achieve a close template, perhaps using one of these low temperature melt alloys like Cerrobend? could be used in casting over the original spline. But then what do I do with that, just grind a tool tip for my shaper tool holder using this casting as a template/gauge to achieve the proper shape for cutting?