High Speed Gears From Nylon

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 12, 2 April 1952, Page 2

High Speed Gears From Nylon

| Sets of seven small high-speed gears are now being made from Nylon instead of steel by a Central England firm. The new gears, the result of eighteen months research and development work, range from j 3/8 inch in diameter to just over half inch and are contained in a compact aluminium gear case, one inch m diameter. They operate five separate drives controlling plastic material for paint spray. The gear box is incorporated in a new spray gun, also produced by the firm which is similarly of a revolutionary type. Less than one-third of the gun's three-pound weight is made of steel and besides nylon, many of its 120 parts are of special plastic. The nylon gears eliminate the need for lubrication and are much quieter in operation. The material is at

least ten times stronger than steel and experimental gears are stated to have shown no signs of wrear after running at 10,000 revolutions a minute and making two million revolutions altogether. The tests have also revealed that all paints normally used for spraying do not effect nylon, though certain of them would attack steel. Production costs are said to have been reduced and manuflacture considerably accelerated because thirty sets of nylon gears c&n be produced in one man hour, the time it takes to produce one set of steel gears. The firm's spray gun is powered by electricity instead of compressed air and costs only about one-fifth of other models.