Miter gears are a special type of bevel gear that operate in pairs and have identical numbers of teeth and pitches.

Many industries, such as the aerospace, automotive, utilities and marine industries, extensively use miter gears to obtain the required gear motions at a 90-degree angle.

Depending on your requirements, you can choose a straight miter gear or a spiral miter gear. Spiral miter gears provide smoother movement than the straight miter gears, as the gear tooth engagement is continuous.

Some important parameters you must consider before buying a miter gear are:

1. Loads acting on the miter gears
2. Miter gear transmission ratio (1:1 gear ratio)
3. Dimensions of miter gears: pitch, module, pressure angle and diameters
4. Type of miter gear : spiral or straight
5. Expected life of a miter gear

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Buy miter gears from reputable miter gear manufacturers

Once you identify your power or motion transmission requirements, check out standard miter gears available with gear manufacturers.

I recommend: Quality Transmission Components, a reputable gear manufacturer, offers standard miter gears with a range of pitches, modules and pressure angles. Rush Gears is another miter gear manufacturer that provides straight and spiral miter gears for the aerospace, mining and textile industries. American Precision Gear is another gear manufacturer that offers stainless miter gears, alloy steels miter gears, aluminum miter gears and a wide variety of gears made of plastics and non-metallic materials. You can also buy miter gear boxes at Curtis Machine Company.

Buy miter gears from miter gear distributors or retailers

You can compare different miter gears based on their features and prices at distributors or retailers' websites.

I recommend: MFG.com, a distributor of power transmission equipment, also offers spiral and straight miter gears to the marine, food and pharmaceutical industries. You can also evaluate products offered by other miter gear distributors such as Industrial Products and Kaman Industrial Technologies.

Buy specialty or customized miter gears

If standard miter gears available in the market do not meet your requirements, opt for customized miter gears. For example, a miter gear with a non-standard module may not be available in the market; however, you can buy a customized miter gear designed according to your needs.

I recommend: Arrow Gear Company manufactures high precision customized miter gears. Link Gear and Machine Company is another customized miter gear manufacturer that can supply miter gears with diameters from 1-36 inches. You can also buy customized miter gears from Kohara Gear.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Ensure proper lubrication for your miter gear system, as both excessive and inadequate lubrication may affect the gear performance.
• •  For extreme operating conditions, such as high pressure and a corrosive environment, consult an expert for the miter gear design.