Great Moments in Gear Rating

By now readers of this Blog are aware of my interest in gear trade history. The more I learn about how we got to this point in our understanding of gears, the more I want to know. Part of what I miss about going into the office every day is the opportunity to talk about gears with others; hence the motivation for writing this Blog. A long-term project is to assemble a timeline on gear rating methods. As it turns out, I was “in the room” when the most recent “big change” was made in the general helical and spur gear standard. Had I been more aware of what was going on, I should have taken better notes and gotten more explanation from the experts on the committee. Sadly, many of those leaders are no longer available for interviews. So I’m reaching out to our readers for help in developing this timeline. If you have old rating standards, domestic or foreign, that you can share, I’d love to have a copy. If you have correspondence or stories about gear rating, those would also be helpful. Eventually I hope to publish the timeline along with the calculated rating of some reference gear sets or gearboxes at different points along the way. Any help will be greatly appreciated and publicly acknowledged.