Tech Info

How to measure the "Brake Offset" on bolt in press on bearing axles

How to measure "Bolt patterns"

How to measure your "Axle shaft lengths"

Axle shaft Shortening & Resplining | Are yours shortenable?

How to measure custom "Bolt in press on bearing axle shafts"

How to measure custom c-clip axle shafts  >Click Here<  for a printable version

How to measure custom floater axle shafts  >Click Here< for a printable version

How to measure custom front axle shafts  >Click Here< for a printable version

How to measure custom CV axle shafts  >Click Here< for a printable version

Wheel bearing styles and identifier >Click Here<

Understanding Two-Cut vs. Five-Cut Ring and Pinion Gears
If you’ve spent any time around ring and pinion gear sets, you’ve likely heard terms like two-cut, five-cut, face-hobbed, and face-milled. For those new to aftermarket driveline upgrades, these can sound confusing — but they simply refer to the manufacturing process used to cut the gears.
In this tech article, Dutchman Axles break down what these terms mean, how to tell the difference between gear types, and which is best suited for your street, track, or off-road setup.

How Ring and Pinion Gears Are Made
There are several ways to machine ring and pinion gears, but the two most common methods are:
•    Face Milling (Five-Cut) – followed by a lapping process
•    Face Hobbing (Two-Cut) – also followed by lapping
In some cases, face-milled gears may be ground instead of lapped. Although this approach is becoming more popular, it’s still not widely used in either OEM or aftermarket applications.

How to Identify Each Gear Type
It’s easy to tell whether a ring and pinion set is face-milled or face-hobbed by inspecting the tooth depth on the ring gear.

•    Face-Milled (Five-Cut) Gears:
The heel (outer edge) of the gear tooth is taller than the toe (inner edge).

 

•    Face-Hobbed (Two-Cut) Gears:
The tooth depth is consistent from heel to toe. These gears also show a natural “bias” in the pattern — meaning the contact pattern appears slightly slanted when you apply gear-marking compound.

 

Why Manufacturers Choose One Method Over the Other
The two-cut (face-hobbed) method is a more modern manufacturing process compared to the traditional five-cut (face-milled) technique. It requires advanced, high-precision machinery, which makes it more expensive to implement.
That said, two-cut gear cutting offers a major advantage: Speed. Each gear — both ring and pinion — is completed in just one cutting pass, while five-cut gears require five passes. This efficiency allows two-cut machines to produce gears much faster, which is why most OEM manufacturers prefer this method.
In contrast, many aftermarket suppliers continue to use the five-cut process because of the tooling and equipment already in place.

What axle material do you use?
What makes your axles stronger than stock?
Why induction hardening vs thru hardening?
Why are your axles machined after heat treating?
These are just a few of the questions we address every day at Dutchman.

Heat Treat:
Induction hardening is the process by which an axle shaft is passed thru an electrical coil, which heats the steel red hot and then quenches the steel to make it hard. The amount of heat put into the steel determines the case depth-the hotter and slower the scan, the deeper and harder the case hardening. The deeper the case, the stronger the shaft. Most stock (oem) shafts made from 1039 steel have a case depth of .125 - .150, and have a hardness of 50-54 on the Rockwell "C" scale. The Dutchman 1541-H shafts have a case depth around the .300 mark and a hardness of 56-59 Rockwell "C" scale. This combo is what gives a 25-30% strength increase over stock 1039 shafts-if you are comparing shafts with a similar length and spline count. Thru hardening is a process by which an axle shaft is heated in a furnace resulting in a shaft that has the same heat treat from the center to the outside diameter. Thru hardened axles have a hardness of 46-48 on the Rockwell "C" scale. The hard case/soft core of an induction hardened 1541-H shaft yields its torsional strength & ductility and the softer "thru Hardening" of a 4340 shaft yields its torsional strength & ductility.

Axle Materials:
Most stock (oem) axles are made from 1039 steel-in the world of press on bearing type axle shafts, and 1050 steel-in the world of c-clip type axle shafts. The 1050 material has more carbon than the 1039 and is needed on the c-clip design to achieve a harder surface where the needle style bearing runs on the axle.
The factory (oem) is only interested in functional, non-performance, in-expensive axle shafts and keeps costs down by using economical materials and quick manufacturing methods such as; rolling the splines and induction hardening the shafts with a quick scan of the shaft, resulting in a shaft that is intended for non-performance driving to and from work, the store, or wherever.

The Dutchman line of flanged alloy axles are made from 1541-H material. 1541-H contains 1.5-2 percent manganese, which allows for a deeper case hardening and tighter grain structure-which ultimately makes for a "stronger than stock" axle shaft. In our line of performance front axles shafts, we use the 4340 "Chromoly" material which is thru hardenable. The design of the shaft and U-Joint ears necessitates the thru hardening process as it is not practical to induction harden the ears.

4340 vs. 1541-H. 4340 has more tensile strength than 1541-H, will take more twisting forces, but cannot take bending forces as well as 1541-H. Flanged axles are overhung beyond the wheel bearing and are subject to these bending forces-especially in the world of wider and/or larger diameter tires. The hard case and soft core design of a 1541-H flanged axle enable the shaft to bend, flex, and spring back.  Properly executed, both 4340 "thru hardened" and an upgraded 1541-H "induction hardened" shaft can achieve nearly the same results in strength in the area of torsional strength (twist forces), but the design of an induction hardened shaft usually yields more bending (life) cycles than a thru hardened 4340 shaft. 4340 is more expensive than 1541-H, thus is reserved for the front shafts only which need the heat treated U-Joint ears for strength reasons.