Gleason Phoenix 280G Bevel Gear Grinding Machine

The Gleason Phoenix 280G is a bevel gear grinding machine — a hard-finishing machine for gears that have already been cut and heat treated. It handles workpieces up to 280 mm diameter with tooth numbers from 1 to 300, using grinding wheels up to 9 in diameter, on a rigid monolithic column.

The range of part geometries it covers is unusually wide: spiral, hypoid, straight bevel, face clutches, face gears, hypoloids, and super reduction hypoids. That breadth is the machine's central argument. A producer whose mix spans conventional hypoid axle sets, face clutches, and super reduction hypoids can finish all of them on one grinder rather than dedicating machines by geometry family.

Two features address grinding cycle time directly. An Automatic Stock Divider is mounted close to the work spindle — stock dividing locates the tooth slots on a heat-treated blank so the wheel enters with grinding stock distributed across both flanks, which is essential because carburizing moves the teeth from where cutting left them. On the 280G, stock dividing runs simultaneously with wheel dressing, so two operations that would otherwise sit in series are overlapped and neither lands on the critical path. The dressing unit itself telescopes, retracting flush with the guarding while grinding is in progress, keeping it clear of the grinding zone.

Quality control is built into the cycle rather than bolted on after it. The 280G has an integrated first part measuring cycle with automated correction, so the first article is measured and the machine adjusts itself without a round trip to an inspection room. On a bevel gear grinder that shortens the slowest part of a changeover — the iteration between grinding a part, measuring it elsewhere, and coming back to correct the setup.

The Phoenix 280G sits at the hard-finishing station of a bevel gear line, downstream of soft cutting and heat treatment. Its job is to take out the distortion that hardening introduced and bring the flanks to final geometry and finish — work that cannot be moved upstream to the cutting machine.