Aiming at the problem that existing commonly used gear cutting methods have many limitations when processing gears with different specifications, a new gear cutting method was proposed. A tapered end mill was used as a tool to reciprocate in the tooth width direction and alternately feed along the tangent direction of the pitch circle to achieve cutting. By adjusting the gear groove depth, tool path direction and indexing angle, the gear processing modulus, pressure angle and number of teeth were changed, and the method of helical gear processing and arc tooth line gear processing were given. A 5-axis machining center and a generalpurpose milling machine were used for actual cutting tests. The research results show that the common normal length deviations of the spur gears machined on the 5-axis machining center are all within 10 μm, which has high accuracy. Compared with conventional gear hobbing, the maximum error of tooth profile machined on a general milling machine (connected with a special feed synchronization device) is 0.05 mm. The proposed gear cutting method can be used to process gears with various specifications only by using a tapered end mill, which can effectively meet the needs of customized small batch production.