Gear Cutting Machines... in the White House?

When President Obama redecorated the Oval Office, he kept some old things and some new things. He kept the Resolute desk, a gift from Queen Victoria in 1880, which has been used by nearly every president since Rutherford B. Hayes. He has added some things, though. With an eye on the American spirit of invention, he has three mechanical items on his bookshelves, on loan from the National Museum of American History's patent collection. President Obama now has before his eyes models for

• Samuel Morse's 1849 telegraph register
  
• John Peer's 1874 gear-cutting machine
  
• Henry Williams' 1877 feathering paddle wheel for steamboats

We thought it was pretty cool that the President has a (model of a) gear-cutting machine. Let's hope his decorative tastes presage a move to help American manufacturing and technology, industries that could really use some support.

Plagued by gear noise and misalignment?

Every gear manufacturer knows that noise is often a big problem. As smaller, more powerful gearboxes are designed and built, reducing the noise of power transmission becomes nearly as big a problem as the transmission itself. Whether you enlarge the pinion, add noise-reducing materials, increase gear quality, or tinker with the gear ratio--many solutions have notable but varying effects. Design World, however, offers another solution for gear noise: Crowning.

Crowning, also known as barreling (the teeth of the gears) Design World says,

This technique involves changing the chordal thickness of the tooth along its axis. This modification eliminates end bearing by offering a contact bearing in the center of the gear.

Aside from reducing gearbox noise, crowning your gears also helps prevent misalignment caused by inaccurate machining of the casting, housing, or shafting. Crowning helps prevent uneven wear in your gearbox. It can be done during the gear cutting processes, reducing the amount of time for a complete effort.

The Design World article is very interesting, and worth a look if you've been faced with some recent gearbox noise and misalignment problems.

Origins of the Ducati L-Twin

Ultimate Motorcycling has a brief history of Ducati's most coveted speed machine, the 1970s L-Twin. The motorcycle owes its distinctive shape to the bevel gear-driven two cylinder engine.

The Ducati bevel-gear twin-cylinder with a 90° V configuration (the "L-twin") was born and bred on the last day of winter in 1970. On that very day, the famous Ducati engineer Fabio Taglioni drew the design that would turn the tide from the single-cylinder Desmodromic engine to the L-twin Desmodromic configuration. Ducati, with Taglioni's help, had set the path forward for the engine platform would later be responsible for the Italian National Anthem being the most well recognized song at Superbike racetracks around the world.

Hit the link above for more about the Italian superbike.