IKONA GEAR INTERNATIONAL INC. (OTCBB: IKGI)

Dear Reader,

What happens when someone…perhaps a public company… reinvents the wheel? Literally.

Today’s subject company may be doing just that... except that it’s the notion of modern gearing instead of the proverbial wheel that is getting the re-design.

IKONA GEAR INTERNATIONAL INC. (OTCBB: IKGI) has reinvented the gear, the all-important component in machinery of all kinds including washing machines, watches and clocks, blenders, automotive components used for power widows and seats, sunroofs, door locks and many of items that all of us use every day.  Some say it is the most important improvement in imperative gearing in over 50 years.

Consider that for just a moment.  Now, on its face that doesn’t scream like the headline “Cancer Cure Found” or “Car that Gets 200 Miles Per Gallon Unveiled."  But look around and ponder the indelible imprint of gears on our daily lives, in the products we consume, and the machinery that brings them to market.  Consider too, that the worldwide market for gears is somewhere north of $100 billion.  Ikona Gear, and Magna Advanced Technologies, one of the top 3 global OEM gear suppliers to the automotive industry, have jointly introduced a newly-designed gear technology for automobiles.  Magna supplies parts for over 40 million automobiles annually, creating a potentially enormous royalty stream for Ikona.

Though gearing lies somewhat below the visible retail surface, is there anything more ubiquitous in industry than the mighty and ever turning gear?  What could an enhancement of gearing mean to productivity and profits?  Some might say that the possibility itself is a revolution in every aspect of the word.
 

About IKONA GEAR

Ikona Gear ("Ikona") designs, manufactures and markets innovative gearing-enabled applications and gear increasing and reduction systems. Ikona's patented intellectual property involves a unique gear tooth form that provides very high gear reduction and very high gear tooth contact. Ikona technology affords significant advantages over traditional planetary gearing systems including: very high torque, reduced size and weight, almost zero backlash, accurate back-and-forth actuation, low wear, superior efficiency and low noise. 

Ikona Gear International Inc. is commercializing and further developing its gear technology. Ikona has a unique combination of a revolutionary patented gear technology and the world’s most sophisticated gear engineers – this combination enables design engineers around the world to leverage Ikona’s gear design expertise into their innovative engineering applications.

• Size and weight reductions in gearing systems enabling installation within size constrained applications 
• Can be manufactured in plastics for a highly rigid and strong gear solution 
• Highest ratio of strength to weight available, especially in gear ratios above 10:1 
• Highest gear ratio available in a single stage gear system, theoretically up to 5,000:1 
• Zero backlash for extreme precision applications 
• Patented gear design, licensable on an exclusive basis, and high gearbox efficiency under various load conditions 
• Gear tooth profiles that are derived mathematically from a path of contact shaped as in the Archimedean spiral 
• The internal gear teeth are conjugate to the pinion teeth 
• The Ikona gear pair has high contact ratio and no tip interference 
• True zero backlash is possible 

APPLICATIONS AND PRACTICAL USE

---

The unique characteristics of the Ikona Gear make it suitable for many applications in a wide variety of industries. The Company has identified 85 target sectors for the Ikona Gearing System that include: Automotive components, medical applications, alternative energy applications, robotics, precision machinery, high torque machinery, aircraft and military equipment and other low-backlash applications. 

The potential to use soft materials for Ikona gears is inherent in the technology. Ikona’s plastic gears are presently used in the medical industry for Aircast’s® joint-hinged Mayo Clinic Elbow Brace.

Ikona Gear asks for royalty payments in exchange for patent protection.  This allows a design phase with low up-front costs and royalties 
that are passed to the end user through the MSRP.

The Ikona Tooth Profile

The Ikona gear mesh consists of an external and internal tooth pair that are unique for each design. With conventional involute gearing, the closer a gear mesh gets to zero backlash, the more chance that even the slightest tolerance errors will cause gear jamming due to contact on both sides of the gear tooth.  With the Ikona Tooth Form,  even at zero backlash, there is still ample clearance on the non-meshing  side of the tooth.

Rated Torque
To take advantage of the Ikona Gear tooth form, it is preferable to use a gear pair in which the contact ratio is as large as possible. For Ikona Gear pairs, the rating methods for spur gears by the A.G.M.A. and the I.S.O. are no longer appropriate. By making assumptions about the proportion of the total tooth force carried by each contacting tooth pair, it will be possible to develop rating procedures using the same principles as the current procedures. It is clear that the Ikona Gear multiple tooth contact will allow output torque values that are considerably higher than those produced by involute teeth.

Materials & Hardening
As in any gears, the allowable bending and contact stresses will be increased if we increase the hardness of the material. The advantage of the Ikona tooth form is that, with the high contact ratio, the stresses are generally considerably lower than they would be in involute gears. It may therefore be sufficient to harden the gears to 300-350 BHN, and then to cut the teeth with no further hardening. The advantage is that there will be no distortion due to heat treatment in the final tooth profiles. This cost saving is another advantage of the Ikona Gear. Because the contact ratio is so high with Ikona Gear sets, materials such as plastics, magnesium, aluminum, and brass can perform better as gears compared with conventional involute gearing.

Manufacturing
One of the main advantages of conventional involute gearing is that many different gear designs can be cut using the same Hob or Shaper cutter. This is an inherent property of the involute tooth form. With the Ikona Tooth Form, this is not possible. However, with the many, highly sophisticated, modern manufacturing processes presently available to companies, these old restrictions no longer apply. Many methods can be used to manufacture Ikona Gears:

Many methods can be used to manufacture Ikona Gears:
Gear Hob/Shaper machines (cutter must be custom designed for each tooth pair design), Wire EDM, Injection Molding, Powder Metallurgy, Precision Casting, and Precision Profile Milling

The Value Proposition
Globally, product marketing is becoming a highly competitive challenge.  Products are being commoditized and manufacturing is being sent offshore. Manufacturers are going back to their design tables to further enhance and differentiate their products to protect their markets.  Ikona Gear offers its clients an opportunity to introduce additional differentiation and further barriers to direct product competition by adding patented design elements to existing products. 

US Patent 5,505,668 
Canadian Patent 2,129,188 
European Patent 0770192 

The Ikona Gear product family is intended for product design engineers who wish to integrate rapidly deployable, flexible, safe, and patent protected gear technology into their product designs. 

The Ikona Design Portfolio
To take maximum advantage of the Ikona Gear tooth form, it is preferable to use gear pairs in which the contact ratio is as large as possible. For Ikona Gear pairs, as gear ratios increase so does the contact ratio – ideally the Ikona gear best performs at ratios greater than 10:1.

The Ikona Gear multiple tooth contact will create output torque values that are considerably higher than those produced by involute teeth, for the same size and materials. Therefore, the Ikona Gear can be made smaller while providing the strength and torque of much larger gears.  The Ikona Gear is ideal in size or capacity constrained applications.

Testing Facilities
In its gear testing laboratory Ikona assembles and tests the function of gear systems designed by its engineers and benchmark its results against similar conventional planetary gears.  In lab tests Ikona Gear uses its own Ikona gear drive test stand along with a Mitutoyo Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM). The CMM machine allows Ikona to measure accurately the cut of its patented Ikona tooth profile against its design drawings.  Ikona can make minute changes and measure those minute changes on its test stand.  This makes Ikona a one-stop shop for designing prototypes, outsourced cutting, assembling, testing and any additional modification to provide its clients a ready-to-manufacture prototype and functionally tested design specification.

Recent Coverage of Ikona

aa

Ikona Gear International and Magna Advanced Technologies have jointly introduced a
patented gear technology that utilizes a newly designed, 
patented tooth profile for use in planetary systems.

(just click here or on the logo above for the full story)

Magna is one of the top 3 global suppliers of technologically advanced automotive systems, components and complete modules.  As of December 2004, Magna employs over 81,000 people at 223 manufacturing divisions and 56 product development and engineering centres throughout North and South America, Mexico, Europe and Asia. As one of the most diversified automotive suppliers in the world, Magna designs, develops and manufactures automotive systems, assemblies, modules and components, and engineers and assembles complete vehicles primarily for sale to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).  Magna is recognized by the world's major OEMs for its innovative technology and product design and total vehicle program management.

an excerpt - Aircast and Ikona came to a licensing agreement in early March, giving Aircast rights to use Ikona's technology and engineering experience in exchange for royalties. According to Ikona executives, this is the first time the company's gear technology has been used in the medical device market. It was originally developed for military purposes in the former Soviet Union, and is now used in the automotive, aviation, robotic, and aerospace industries, according to the company. 

Ikona Press Release Headlines

aa

The Ikona Design Team

aaa
Dr. John Colbourne, Ph.D., P. Eng., Engineering Design Advisor 

Dr. Colbourne is regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on gear engineering and holds a BA from Cambridge and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.  Dr. Colbourne is the author of “The Geometry of Gears” an academic reference on gear design. Dr. Colbourne has published numerous research papers on the geometry of gears. He is the Chairman of the American Gear Manufacturers Association Nomenclature Committee. 

Barrie Freeke, P. Eng., Senior Design Engineer

Mr. Freeke is a professional mechanical engineer and a graduate of Bradford University in Mechanical Engineering (Hon) with over 25 years of experience in gear design. Mr. Freeke is a well-known gear designer having developed applications for Timberland Ellicott, Swann Winches, Canron, Western Bridge Div. Vanterm Container Cranes and Locheed Petroleum. Prior to joining Ikona, Mr. Freeke held the position of Chief Engineer with Lantec Industries Inc., a large manufacturer of gear drives and winches.

Shubin Liu, Ph.D., B. Sc., Senior Mechanical Engineer

Mr. Liu has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.Sc. in Computer Science.  He has developed state-of-the-art software for Boundary Element Analysis, a specialized subset of Finite Element Analysis used in determining contact stresses in mechanical components.  Mr. Liu creates and applies solutions to issues with materials inflexibilities to improve the performance characteristics of the Ikona Gear™.

Allan R. Murdoch, Mechanical Design Technologist

Mr. Murdoch is an accomplished Mechanical Design Technologist with over 26 years of design and manufacturing experience in both low and high volume environments, with emphasis on materials, methods and process procurement.  Additionally, he has extensive experience developing innovative designs and methods to incrementally improve products and reduce manufacturing costs. 

Dean Emery, Draughtsman

Mr. Emery is a traditional trained draughtsman, working on custom winches and gearboxes, over the last 8 years, using planetary geared systems. He has acquired extensive CADD/Database customization knowledge and experience in the past 15 years. Dean is an expert in the use of animations in proving the new Ikona gear motion. Dean is a “Jack of any trade” master of many. 
 

Financial Highlights For Ikona

Last Trade: $0.60 (4/19/05) 52wk Range: $0.45 - $1.75  Shares O/S (millions) 25.137 Market Cap (millions) $17.596  Float (millions) 16.394

TO CONTACT IKONA

---

*** The Bull is Running. ***
There may never be a better time to feature YOUR company
to over 1 MILLION investors.

To learn more about our programs email us directly at info@stockupticks.com

Disclaimer: StockUpTicks.com is a property of Market Pathways Financial Relations Incorporated (MP).  The information, opinions and analysis contained herein are based on sources believed to be reliable but no representation, expressed or implied, is made as to its accuracy, completeness or correctness.  Past performance is no guarantee of future results. This report is a paid advertisement and is for information purposes only and should not be used as the basis for any investment decision.  MP has been paid twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars by Ikona Gear International Inc. for preparation and distribution of this report and other advertising services over the next ninety days. This constitutes a conflict of interest as to MP’s ability to remain objective in its communication regarding the subject company.  Write or call MP for detailed disclosure as required by Rule 17b of the Securities Act of 1933/1934 - Market Pathways 1920 Main Street, Suite 980, Irvine, CA  92614.  MP is not an investment advisor and this report is not investment advice. This information is neither a solicitation to buy nor an offer to sell securities but is a paid advertisement.  Information contained herein contains forward-looking statements and is subject to significant risks and uncertainties, which will affect the results.  The opinions contained herein reflect our current judgment and are subject to change without notice. MP and/or its affiliates, associates and employees from time to time may have either a long or short position in securities mentioned.  Information contained herein may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of Market Pathways Financial Relations Incorporated.