Custom Gears & Worm Wheels — Machined to Drawing

What this part is and where it is used

A gear is a rotating machine element with cut teeth that mesh with another toothed part to transmit torque, change speed or reverse direction. We machine custom gears and worm wheels from bar, plate and forged blanks to your drawing, covering spur, helical, bevel and worm tooth forms as well as rack and pinion pairs. Each gear is defined by its module or diametral pitch, tooth count, pressure angle, face width, and the bore, hub or keyway detail, so the drawing drives the cutting route rather than the reverse.

These parts go into gearboxes, reducers, actuators, pumps, conveyors, agricultural drives, packaging machines and general power-transmission assemblies. The buyer is usually an engineer specifying a replacement or prototype gear, or a procurement team sourcing a production batch. Because the tooth profile, bore and faces must stay in a controlled relationship, we plan every gear as one machining route — from blank preparation through tooth cutting to the final bore and face work — rather than treating the teeth as a separate afterthought.

Types and variants we manufacture

Spur gears are the workhorse for parallel shafts, with straight teeth cut by hobbing or shaping; they are the simplest to machine and the most common request. Helical gears use angled teeth for quieter, smoother running and come off the same hobbing route. Bevel gears transmit motion between intersecting shafts and are milled, while worm gears and worm wheels deliver high reduction in a compact stage and are cut to a specific lead and centre distance. Rack and pinion pairs convert rotation into linear travel and are cut as a matched set when the drawing requires it.

On the detail side, we machine plain bores, keyed bores, splined bores, hubs, shoulders, set-screw flats and threaded holes in the same programme. The cutting route is chosen by tooth size and volume: hobbing for production runs of external teeth, shaping for internal teeth and teeth close to a shoulder, and milling for prototypes, bevels and small batches. This lets us hold the same tooth geometry whether you order samples or a repeat production lot.

Materials, threads and finishes

Material choice follows the load and the environment. We cut gears from carbon steel 1045 and 1215, alloy steel 4140 for higher strength, stainless steel 303, 304, 316 and 17-4PH where corrosion or strength matters, and aluminium 2024, 6061 or 7075 for light instrument and prototype gears. Brass and bronze are common for worm wheels and low-load drives, and titanium is available where weight is critical. See our materials guide for the full working list and how each grade behaves under load.

Most gears ship in the machined condition or with a finish chosen for the application. Heat treatment, including carburising and induction hardening, and surface finishes such as anodising, zinc or nickel plating and black oxide are arranged through our vetted partner network, managed under one quality process. Whatever the finish, the gear leaves with the tooth form and bore specified on the drawing, plus a material certificate (MTR) so the material grade is documented.

Industries and applications

Gears and worm wheels appear across the machine-building sector. Our custom gears feed industrial equipment such as reducers, actuators, indexing tables, pumps, winches and conveyor drives, where tooth count and face width are set by the designer’s ratio and torque requirement. Agricultural and construction machinery use larger spur and bevel sets for drives and attachments, while food-processing and packaging equipment favour stainless steel gears for washdown areas.

Instrumentation, robotics and automation often specify small brass, aluminium or stainless gears for actuators and positioning stages. Marine and general engineering order worm gear pairs and racks for steering, lifting and feed mechanisms. Because every order is made to drawing, the same factory can serve a one-off replacement gear and a scheduled production lot — the difference is only quantity, not the machining route.

Why order this part from our factory

Everything happens under one roof in our factory in Qidong City, Jiangsu Province, China: blank preparation, tooth cutting, bore and keyway work, and finishing are planned as a single route, so the tooth profile and the mounting features are produced in the same job rather than handed between shops. We do not narrow the capability to one cutting method — hobbing, shaping and milling are chosen per part, and forging, heat treatment and plating are available in-house or through our vetted partner network.

You can compare this page against our turning and milling capability pages to see how gears sit alongside the shafts, screws and housings we already make. We hold ±0.01 mm on precision features and ISO 2768-m as the general tolerance, with an MOQ from 50 pieces and samples from 1 piece in 5–10 days. Production runs 25–35 days after sample approval, and we quote within 24 hours with DFM feedback. Every shipment goes out with a material certificate (MTR) and pre-shipment photos, and you can start through our request-a-quote form.