Maunsell wheels AG or Exactoscale?

[steve howe]

Hi,

The Stores stocks Mansell wheels 3' 7" by both Alan Gibson and Exactoscale, can anyone advise which, if either, is the better wheel? I have six (plus a few more) four-wheel coaches on Bill Bedford sprung W irons to finish and am looking for reliability.

Cheers

Steve

[Philip Hall]

This is possibly not the answer you're looking for but the answer is Ultrascale, every time. They are dead true, wobble free and as near perfect as you could wish. AG are very good indeed but sometimes you get a wobbly one or one that is not quite concentric, something that Colin will always sort out. Exactoscale look great but I have found the dickens of a fiddle to get on the axles wobble free.

Philip

[Jol Wilkinson]

Philip,

do you have the large B2B/Assembly jig that Exactoscale produced and recommended for fitting the wheels to the axle?

It provides support around most of the back of the wheels as they are pushed onto the axle and the Loctite retainer sets. I don't think an "L" shaped B2B gauge give the same support/alignment.

Jol

[Paul Cram]

You can het parallel axles and bearings for the exactoscle ones which dont' push out the sprung w irons.

[Philip Hall]

Jol,

You're right, I don't have that big gauge so maybe that is the problem. I do have a large round GW gauge - maybe that would be an idea to try for the few wheels I do have to assemble. I'm not going to shell out for a 'proper' gauge for a few odd wheelsets and which I might never use again. The late Ivan Smith made me up some sets many years ago for a vehicle that needed scale width wheels - he had the right gauge and even one of those was a little bit out. I still prefer a ready assembled, robust wheelset though. The Australian solid metal varieties are very good also.

Paul, thank you for the reminder of the availability of parallel axles, although I've yet to need those. I have never found a problem with axles pushing out bearings but maybe this is the old problem of bearing depth variations? I have recently acquired (on long term loan) about 40 kit built wagons, mostly Parkside and Ratio with fixed bearings and US or AG wheels and very few of these have splayed out W irons. And also run beautifully with no suspension, which was a relief and saved me a lot of work.

Philip

[Tony Wilkins]

Exactoscale look great but I have found the dickens of a fiddle to get on the axles wobble free.

Philip

Hi Philip.
I have found the same problem although I do have the proper B2B gauge and followed the Exactoscale instructions, but find it difficult to get a set of wheels that run true. To my mind the sliding fit of the wheel on the axle has rather too much clearance.
Regards
Tony.

[JFS]

I have used dozens of pairs of Exactoscale wheels. I have had the occasional pair which has gone wrong on me, but, I would guess the overall success rate to be about 95% or better.

The Secret is to follow the instructions - TO THE LETTER. For example, they specifically say that after the Loctite has been applied, the wheels should be spun to distribute it evenly. I dare to suggest that not doing this has caused every failure I have had to date. That said, it is not impossible that batches have been produced with excess clearance - I know Tony well enough to be confident that he will have done as instructed!

By contrast, I have not used AG for the past 20-odd years because I was heartily sick of having trains derail because a tyre had come loose / the BTB had drifted / the tyre was stuck against the moulding pip etc etc. I don't discount the possibility that current production is of better quality - but I have no desire to find out.

I agree also that Ultrascale are great - though you need to plan ahead - and they have the big advantage that they come ready to use with zero scope for user-cock-up!! I am not sure if this counts as a drawback, but Ultrascale wheels are quite wide on the tread which sometimes means a bit of material removal on bogie side-frames etc. The Exactoscale wheels are dead scale, and if you have a bit of way-over-guage track, (for example to get locos round a tight curve) the wheels can drop between the rails (how do I know this ....)

Unfortunately, quality comes at a price - so if money is tight ...

Best Wishes,
Howard

[Philip Hall]

The Ultrascale wheels I have are all the standard 2mm tread width that is in the P4 specifications and seems to be used by AG and others. Of course, the correct width is 1.85mm as per Exactoscale but I've had no problems. If it was, a few careful strokes with a no 6 cut file around the tyre fronts would solve the problem, but at the expense of the guarantee!

Philip

[Jol Wilkinson]

Regrettably the Exactoscale loco bogie and tender wheels are no longer available, the narrower tyres giving a bit more clearance than other makes, where space is tight.