Dividing Head & Cutting Direction

I have a similar situation with my Van Norman. In order to cut from footstock towards the dividing head the mill motor has to run in reverse to avoid climb milling.
Just tighten everything real good and check between passes to see if anything is unscrewing.

If I may sidetrack this thread for a moment. On-line gear making always show cutting the tooth in one pass. Is this also true when making large teeth? I need to cut some 4-dp gears .539 deep. This seems like a BIG cut to do in one pass.
What do you think?

Mike

I certainly would not cut the tooth in one pass. Yeah, take out as much as you feel comfortable with or the machine will handle in one pass. Always leave extra material for the finish cut. That way if for some reason the blank was to shift slightly from heavy cutting, the finish pass will fix that. Also, you generally get the PD on size using measurement over pins and taking finishing cuts to get the PD correct. If you hog out too much metal, you scrap a gear or you use a gear that the PD is undersize. This is ok on adjustable centers, but on fixed centers, it don't work too good. Ken