Ratchet gear and pawl question

[spro]

It all sounds good to me. Milling machines have newer table drives and why not shapers. One thing is that the original GearWrench works in one direction. The older, open frame type had a pawl which is shifted like a ratchet wrench.
There is something else, which is maintaining the table position during the stroke. While the old style is ancient, the heavy spring locked the pawl into the wheel. If the tightest GearWrench can handle the same backward thrust... I mean equivalent to the original, it is the answer.
Oh heck. I shouldn't go here but we are looking back at industry. There was a reason for a pawl could be reversed and why wheels wore out. It was required that something would wear. We are not looking at table feed here. This was an indexing. It was automatic but was still an indexing of the table. Shaper tools could be of many shapes and cut in different ways. Some of these will exploit any play between strokes. A one way ratchet is not the answer, nor is a normal ratchet wrench. It is a tight locking of the table feed before the next stroke. It is tight and it is strong. Things wear but to be accurate, it is that way.

[John Hasler]

I don't see why that one-way rachet and pawl design would be any more accurate or lock any more tightly than a ratchet wrench or socket driver. It's driving a leadscrew, isn't it? If so it isn't going to backdrive. The leadscrew takes care of locking. If that isn't sufficient you need yet another mechanism to lock the gib during the working stroke.

[spro]

Fair points. The shape of the tool determines the direction of feed in most cases. Heck, I would try a GearWrench too.