Originally Posted by
rustlererad3
That is also an excellent question and I'm thinking that based on the hardness of the gear it shouldn't chatter on the shaft and fail or fail from the weakling however I could probably use inventor and software like deform to see if it will fail I foresee some finite element analysis software in the future and also I'm wondering how hard it would be to just machine my own pinions and heat treat them after
I have witnessed dual set screw pinions fail in this manor on more than one occasion. Even if you're able to drill the hole, tapping the threads is going to be the problem. A tap that small will not be able to handle cutting threads into a hardened material. They just are not designed to do that. See this is where it becomes abundantly clear that you are strait out of school, and working as a consulting engineer. A real engineer understands design limitations, and that there is a process to working within those limitations. The real engineers have already figured out that a tap can't be made that small, AT A REASONABLE COST, that can tap into a hardened material. So if a real engineer is designing something that needs to be hardened, and have a set of 4-40 threads. He makes the threads before he hardens the material.
Also as far as having a few pinions sitting idly by. They are $4, I mean come on. And don't pull this I love the challange BS. If you really loved the challange you would set your goals a bit higher than "I wonder if I can do something that has already been done (make your own pinion gear)" Oh I bet the machinist where you work just love you.