Anti-backlash gear

An anti-backlash twin gear constituted by a pair of half-gears, each half-gear comprising a toothed wheel stamped out of sheet metal and provided with a diametrical spoke having a center mounting bore, the arched area between one side of the spoke and one half-section of the wheel being fully excised to form an open region, the arched area between the opposite side of the spoke and the other half-section being contour-cut to define a C-shaped untensioned flat spring whose foot is integral with said spoke, the spring having an element at the free end thereof which is offset with respect to the plane of the wheel whereby when a pair of such half gears are juxtaposed so that the offset element of each half-gear is received within the open region of the other and abuts the edge of the spoke forming this region, the two half-gears are angularly displaced by the untensioned springs to a predetermined degree to produce an anti-backlash twin gear in which the corresponding teeth of the half-gears overlap, and when this twin gear is intermeshed with a driving pinion engaging both half-gears, the springs are then tensioned, thereby exerting pressure on opposite tooth flanks of the pinion to avoid lost motion.