In this video I start the process of taking measurements of the original rack gear teeth, then using some basic trig. figure the amount of taper the teeth are showing as trapezoidal geometry, (in other words I'm ignoring any involute curvature, to make things easier for me at the lathe),
once that is done, then over to my lathe, I set my compound slide to cut a short taper, and I proceed to shape out of tool steel (drill rod) a form tool that fits as close as I can get it to the profile of the gear teeth, and machine it to center flat on my mill,
and then start cutting a scrap piece of aluminum barstock, with three teeth profiles to see how well the form tool performs.
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In this video I start the process of measuring out the actual rack blank predone in the previous episodes, to acquire the proper height above the dovetail, then start machining the blank into a rack gear, using my homemade gear tooth forming tool, on my milling machine.
Next up will be to start assembling the rack to the rest of the saddle, and getting everything working together as one unit.