Iaroslav Lazunov has a great tutorial over on Astute Graphics’ blog on how to create proper gears in Adobe Illustrator. This tutorial makes use of the plugin VectorScribe, but the same results could be achieved with Illustrator’s default tools with some extra steps.
An important distinction is made here: Proper Gear. Most gears that show up in illustrations and icons would not work with any efficiency and some would just shred to bits. While you wouldn’t necessarily 3D print these and use them, you’ll end up with something that at least looks like it would work (unlike the failboat below).
Also included in the tutorial is a way to accomplish conical gradients in Illustrator (unfortunately the technique is extremely convoluted).
Did anyone else know about this technique of creating conical gradients? Pretty smart! I would have used some sort of blend, which would not have allowed for easy editing after the fact.