a burnishing machine and method employing a pair of oppositely disposed burnishing gears . the invention involves the use of two syncronously driven gears which operatively engage teeth on opposite sides of a spline or a gear . in one embodiment , for generally elongated articles , the axes of the workpiece and the gears are generally horizontal . in another embodiment for generally flat articles , the axes of the workpiece and the gears are generally vertical . in both embodiments the gears are rotated at an angular velocity sufficient to hold the workpiece translationally stationary . in the preferred embodiment the burnishing gears have different pressure angles and therefore burnish different portions of the workpiece tooth profile .