Thanks again Michael for your more than clear explanation (as always), I tried both methods and it works splendidly!
I am now trying to figure out how big the base and target surface should be so that the teeth of the gear do not deform but the inner part does. as you can see from the screendump, the placement of the 2 surfaces is crucial.
2nd from right is the projective method, the 2 left gears are with the non projective method, but with different placement of the 2 surfaces. the 2nd gear has the 2 surfaces aligned in the centre of the original gearwheel.
to be honest, I hadn't noticed that little checkmark square with 'projective' till you mentioned it. the non projective method takes considerably more time to calculate.

MoI rocks!

wim