How a Beavertail Index Mechanism Works?

The "Beaver-tail" stop mechanism is an invention of Charles R. Gabriel. It is developed for use in connection with the feed mechanism of gear-cutting machines build by Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co. The name "beaver-tail" is applied to this mechanism because of the shape of the cam which form an important part of it.

The driving blue gear rotates continuously and drives the yellow gear through ordinary gear teeth except when "beaver-tail" mechanism comes into action, at which time the motion of yellow gear is controlled by two red rollers and the "beaver-tail" cam. During this process yellow gear stops temporarily with a harmonic motion to minimize the shock.

These animations were rather difficult for me to simulate. I never used frame by frame animation before. As you can see from the first animation which is done by action script, there are problems. Two demonstrate the concept, I did the second animation by using frames (no action script). Even though both animations are not as good as I want them to be, it demonstrates the concept clearly to people who are familiar with intermittent motion mechanisms.

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