Scalefour Forum

If you contact George Watts of GW he will supply a spare set of pins for 3mm axles. Alternatively you can obtain from him a spare set of 1/8" pins and just reduce them a little in a mini drill with a file. I have chemically blackened mine so as to be able to tell the difference between 1/8" and 3mm.

I see Keith's comments about the GW press, but for me it's foolproof and the only way I put on wheels. The Hambling's press is a completely different animal which worked OK (at times) with their wheels and a very large vice to press the two halves together, but that is from the very dim distant past when that was the only thing available for their wheels. I came across a set of Hambling's wheels on the members' sales stand at Expo Em and realised how crude they were. As was the tool. I was pretty staggered someone was trying to sell such wheels today. The GW press is in a completely different league.

Philip

As an aside is George still making the wheel press? I only ask as someone paid £92 for a secondhand one on Ebay last week!

I made a useful modification to my wheel press by adding some plasticard shims so that the wheels are pressed onto the axles by the rims. It makes them getting them on squarely much more reliable.

Cheers....Morgan

I brought a wheel press from George at expoEM a couple of weeks ago.
£24.50 plus £5 for a set of 3mm pins.
G.W. Models advertise in MRJ and I think George is booked to be at Scaleforum in September?

45609 wrote:I made a useful modification to my GW wheel press by adding some plasticard shims so that the wheels are pressed onto the axles by the rims. It makes them getting them on squarely much more reliable.

I'm at a loss, how do you manage to get them on off square? I always press them against a back to back gauge and that works 100% reliably for me.

Steve Carter wrote:I think George is booked to be at Scaleforum in September?

Yes he is.

Terry Bendall

Thanks for confirming Terry.

As useful as they are I still can’t believe someone paid £92 for a second-hand GW wheel press on eBay when a brand new one is available from the manufacturer for £24.50 and George, according to his MRJ advert, does mail order both UK and World?

Crazy!!

Well, yes. The process may be the old analogue one of posting a piece of paper with a signature on it, but it works well!

Will L wrote:I'm at a loss, how do you manage to get them on off square? I always press them against a back to back gauge and that works 100% reliably for me.

In the bad old days of variable quality Gibson wheels I found it was quite common for the wheel pushed on with the wheel press to have a few thou of wobble. It was a particular risk with wheels that had a protruding boss. I was pushing them onto a Brook-Smith B2B gauge but still the wobble could show up. The conclusion I came to at the time was that by applying the push force at the centre combined with imperfect wheel centres the out of true could easily happen. The first step in the solution was to add the plasticard shims so that the push came from further out radially and through the tyres. This improved matters but I them started removing the wheel centres and taking off any flash, burrs or moulding pips. I'd then re-seat the tyres onto the centres and glue them in place. This pretty much solved the problem for me but it is worth noting that under Colin Seymour the Gibson wheels have taken a quantum leap in quality. I learned at Railex last weekend that Colin does a few things differently in the production process and it really shows. This may well make parts of my wheel assembly process less relevant now (certainly the complete disassembly of the centre and tyre) but I still check and verify everything is correct at each stage. The shims on the wheel press have stayed because it makes good engineering sense to me.

Cheers....Morgan

45609 wrote

so that the push came from further out radially and through the tyres.

Pushing at the rim will be better for squareness but I would worry about the force being transmitted through the spokes to the centre. I take it that you have had no associated problems such as deformed spokes?

Steve

Steve Carter wrote:Thanks for confirming Terry.

As useful as they are I still can’t believe someone paid £92 for a second-hand GW wheel press on eBay when a brand new one is available from the manufacturer for £24.50 and George, according to his MRJ advert, does mail order both UK and World?

Crazy!!

Prepare to be amazed at the stupidity of bidders again.....

Another expensive GW Wheel Press

45609 wrote:Prepare to be amazed at the stupidity of bidders again.....

Another expensive GW Wheel Press

Remind me to buy a job lot at S4um/S4North and drip feed them onto ebay

They do say that if you're going to become a multi-millionaire that you need to make your first million before you're 30, and I havent long left...