Tom Hammond's latest project was to build a Gear Hobber. Tom's actual comments probably say it better than I can.

"This is somewhat a 90%-scale version of the College Engineering Supply/Helix interpretation of the Jacobs "scrap-metal" hobber from "Model Engineer" back in the late '70s. I am only making patterns, and the prototype machine. Gary Martin will probably have the castings available sometime in the future. I will NOT be drawing plans or writing instructions for building or using it. The original Jacobs design was supposed to be able to use a 20 DP hob, and had something like a 4" maximum blank capacity. Mine is a bit smaller but more heavily built, and I would estimate that approximately the same parameters apply to it."