I have this trusty old Craftsman bench planer. Model 351.217580. Like this.
The thickness adjustment crank has a threaded shaft that goes down one side to a bevel gear set which turns a horizontal shaft to another bevel gear set to spin the threaded shaft on the other side. The bevel gears are cast plastic and the keyway sheared off a couple of the gears. Replacement parts are no longer made.
For a while, there was a guy on ebay who fabbed his own from steel and was selling a set of 4 for $60. Now that ebay link shows he's selling them for $550. Not helpful.
Anyway, the part number is 24786.00. The goal is to find 4, otherwise I'm looking at trashing this perfectly good planer and spending $400 on a new one. Another possibility is to find a company that makes bevel gears and try to get lucky enough to find one off the shelf that will work.
Print a few of these to test fit, then send them off protolabs or some other rapid manufacturing shop?
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3074142
That one looks great, but it's a different keyway. That one has two flat sides. Mine uses a woodruff-type key.
I thought about making a sand mold and casting some from aluminum, but that is max effort and not easily done.
I have a similar problem with a practically new Delta bandsaw that I accidentally grabbed by the table and broke off the tilt gear. Part NLA..
That gear looks like a fairly easy part to replicate in sketchup and maybe somebody with a printer could make a couple.
Contact the ebay seller, it looks like a mistype. If you look at completed listings he sells them for $55
even on the one completed for $550 it shows them actually selling for $55
If you don't have a 3d printer, this seems like a great excuse to purchase one.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:
I thought about making a sand mold and casting some from aluminum, but that is max effort and not easily done.
Sand mold is hard mode. Plaster casting is so much easier. You do have to burn out the plastic, though so you'd need good positives. Something you could do with a silicone mold?
This looks promising?
https://shop.sdp-si.com/catalog?cid=p271
Mr_Asa said:
This looks promising?
https://shop.sdp-si.com/catalog?cid=p271
I had looked in several catalogs; McMaster, Fastenal, Grainger, et al. Nothing close, but I'm continuing the search. Originally, I was hoping it was all SAE. The OD was 1.248 (sounds like inch and a quarter) and the bevel diameter was .980 (sounds like one inch), but the ID for the shaft was .390". The closest fraction to that is 25/64. So I switched the calipers to metric and got 25mm, 32mm, and 10mm on the nose. I think the gear part wouldn't matter much, but there is nothing I can do about the 10mm ID.
Steve_Jones said:
Contact the ebay seller, it looks like a mistype. If you look at completed listings he sells them for $55
Oh.... GOOD CATCH. Off to email him now.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
The link I gave did have a metric beveled gear section. You should be able to look through it if you go up a level or two in the index.
Edit: https://shop.sdp-si.com/catalog/?cid=p392
https://shop.sdp-si.com/catalog/?cid=p3133
Plaster cast, then pour a new one using JB Weld. Ugly, but should work.
Ebay seller got back to me. He altered the price so no one buys any because he's out of stock. Should have more by the end of the week.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Yay.
