Coming up dry for Alps/Radio Shack/Atari/Commodore plotter gears

Hello Ethan, Internal splines, which is basically what that extrusion die would be are much harder to do than cutting gear teeth on the OD of a gear blank. The internal splines would have to be done on a slotter ( or possibly a shaper with the right set up, i.e. some cutting machine with a linear reciprocating cutting motion ) or cut into the die with EDM or wire EDM processes. Much more difficult, and therefore more expensive manufacturing processes. Original gears probably were shot in a plastic injection mold, but the mold making is very expensive too, and not something to do for very small production runs. Too bad you couldn't find someone with a broach, because broaching internal splines might not be as expensive a manufacturing process as long as you found someone with the broach already made up. To have a tool and die maker have to make a broach would also be expensive. Also extrusion die blank material would have too not be too hard to broach. But then you have to have the extrusion process set up and run. All in all, if you can't find them already made up, milling the teeth into blanks or slotting on a lathe are probably going to be your only really feasible options. Best Regards At 08:13 AM 4/22/03 -0700, you wrote: