00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

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Simon Moore

00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Simon Moore » Sat Dec 05, 2020 3:01 pm

I was wondering if it is possible to turn a 00/EM wheel in a lathe to 18.83 standards?

The reason I'm asking is because I have some RT models slag ladle kits which use a markits 8mm wheel. I cannot get these wheels anywhere else & markits don't supply them in p4.

Can a wheel be turned down ?

nigelcliffe
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby nigelcliffe » Sat Dec 05, 2020 3:39 pm

Simon Moore wrote:I was wondering if it is possible to turn a 00/EM wheel in a lathe to 18.83 standards?

The reason I'm asking is because I have some RT models slag ladle kits which use a markits 8mm wheel. I cannot get these wheels anywhere else & markits don't supply them in p4.

Can a wheel be turned down ?


Generally yes.
The simplest is to reduce the flange height and width to P4 size. That leaves a tread which is too wide, which won't affect running on rails. Then move them out to correct back-to-back, ensuring it doesn't foul parts of the wagon.
Next is to reduce tread width as well, which gets tricky as its often to the front of the wheel.
Final option is to turn off enough material to allow a P4 complete tyre to be fitted over the wheel.

- Nigel

Steve Carter
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Steve Carter » Sat Dec 05, 2020 3:51 pm

This may help Simon viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7184
Steve Carter

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grovenor-2685
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat Dec 05, 2020 5:00 pm

And if you don't want to wait for an expensive form tool, this may help,
http://www.norgrove.me.uk/U20C-project/u20c.html
Keep scrolling down till you get to the part on wheels.
Regards
Keith
Grovenor Sidings

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Tim V
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Tim V » Sat Dec 05, 2020 5:06 pm

Don't let Martin Goodall read this thread!

Seriously, Martin would say push the wheels out to BtoB, and try them - you have nothing to lose :D
Tim V
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Martin Wynne
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Martin Wynne » Sat Dec 05, 2020 6:29 pm

Tim V wrote:Don't let Martin Goodall read this thread!

Seriously, Martin would say push the wheels out to BtoB, and try them - you have nothing to lose :D


Markits flange thickness 0.7mm

P4 flangeway gap 0.68mm

er...
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Enigma
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Enigma » Sat Dec 05, 2020 7:59 pm

Do you have a lathe Simon? Are these wheels all metal or with a plastic centre? I'll admit I'm not familiar with them so I need to ask. I have successfully adapted OO wheels by skimming off the back to reduce the flange thickness to the recommended P4 width and then reducing the flange height a bit (!).

Terry Bendall
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Terry Bendall » Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:38 am

Scalefour News 166 and 167, available in the archive had two articles on making wheels that may be of use. Also try www.mmrs.org.uk/technical/wheels.htm where the late Sid Stubbs outlined his methods which I used for the articles.

Terry Bendall

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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby martin goodall » Mon Dec 07, 2020 5:39 pm

Martin Wynne wrote:
Tim V wrote:Don't let Martin Goodall read this thread!

Seriously, Martin would say push the wheels out to BtoB, and try them - you have nothing to lose :D


Markits flange thickness 0.7mm

P4 flangeway gap 0.68mm

er...



I did read this, but did not comment at first, because I knew from personal experiment that Markits wheels (though they are of excellent quality) have flanges that are too thick to run through P4 flangeways. So if you are intent on using Markits wheels, there is no alternative to turning them down.

Having tried out a few Markit wheels myself, purely for the sake of experiment, I discarded them in favour of EM wheels from Kean-Maygib, Ultrascale and Alan Gibson, all of which have a flange profile that will run through P4 flangeways without modification.

The only provisos (at the risk of repeating myself) are that (1) your track must not be less than 18.83 mm gauge anywhere on the layout (and this really does need to be checked, with a roller gauge at the very least, if not a vernier gauge, because you can't rely solely on the construction gauges to ensure that the 18.83 minimum track gauge is maintained), and (2) you must set the back-to-back of the wheelsets to the minimum P4 back-to-back setting - 17.67.mm [or 17.7 mm in practice], which the original Studiolith BB gauge will do for you automatically, provided you measure the back-to-back on the backs of the flanges and don't push the whole wheel into the BB gauge.
Last edited by martin goodall on Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Alan Turner
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Alan Turner » Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:10 pm

Simon Moore wrote:I was wondering if it is possible to turn a 00/EM wheel in a lathe to 18.83 standards?

The reason I'm asking is because I have some RT models slag ladle kits which use a markits 8mm wheel. I cannot get these wheels anywhere else & markits don't supply them in p4.

Can a wheel be turned down ?


Are they flat on the back? If so do what we had to do with early Sharman wheels and rub then on some emery paper until the flange is the correct thickness. You will need some new 1.5mm axels of course - Probably Eileen's Emporium is your answer there.

regards

Alan

garethashenden
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby garethashenden » Mon Dec 07, 2020 10:40 pm

A picture's worth a thousand words, so here are the wheels being discussed.

Image
Image

Philip Hall
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Philip Hall » Tue Dec 08, 2020 12:28 am

The wheels in the picture look as though there is very little radius between tyre and flange, good for what you want to do. I would mount the wheel by the tyre in the three jaw chuck, making sure it doesn’t wobble, then take a skim off the back of the flange until it looks about the same thickness as a P4 one. Now you could measure this, but a reliable way is to pick up a standard P4 wheel and waggle it in a flangeway and judge how much play there is. Do the same with your newly skimmed wheel and see if it feels and looks the same. All you need is for the wheel to pass through the flangeway nicely. Once you've done that for one wheel, you will know how much to take off for the others.

The last job is to turn the wheel around, mounted on an axle, and use a fine file, 4 or 6 cut (mounted in a handle of course) and take a bit off the depth of the flange. So long as you don’t touch the tyre surface the concentricity of the wheel won’t be affected, it won’t matter if your three jaw chuck is a little out (aren’t they all?) and with a light touch on the file the wheel won’t slip on the axle (with luck!) I wouldn’t bother to alter the width of the tyre from the front; they look very nice and skimming off the front is more difficult to do because you would be holding the wheel by the axle. If you did feel the need I’d do it by rubbing the front of the wheel on a file.

If, however, the wheels aren’t true, then you’re into mounting the wheel in a true ring chuck and proper reprofiling. With Markits I think you shouldn’t have to do that, they’re usually quite true.

I’ve done this on old Romford wheels and modern Markits wheels where the flange thickness is excessive and needs thinning down even in EM if finer standards are being used for the trackwork.

Philip

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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby davebradwell » Tue Dec 08, 2020 10:01 am

You've pretty much trashed the idea of P4 tolerances there, Philip. We've no idea what equipment Simon has - collets would do a nice job or perhaps soft jaws, although these don't seem to be available for mini-lathes. And 3 jaw chucks don't wobble if they are good quality, mounted correctly and not abused. Why not check it first?

Perhaps Simon, you might try a few measurements. If you're a bit out then at least you tried.

DaveB

Philip Hall
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Philip Hall » Tue Dec 08, 2020 1:39 pm

You might well have a point, Dave! However, what I’ve done does work, and makes for decent workable clearances through P4 flangeways. I find I can judge these things quite well and actually feeling and seeing the amount of clearance is sometimes better than using a gauge. I’m not suggesting at all that this is the way we would recommend to a beginner, for example, but when you’ve been in this game as long as we have you do get a feel for these things. I’m sure you do. Of course I usually use proper P4 wheels as I only do this sort of thing when there aren’t a lot of other options.

I may have phrased what I said about wobble in a way that could be misunderstood. I meant that the tyre should not wobble when mounted in the chuck, not that the chuck should be free from wobble. My chuck is a Sherline, mounted on my Unimat SL lathe, doesn’t wobble at all and has a run out of about 1 -1.25 thou, which I think is pretty good. I can’t get decent collets for the lathe, so I make my own for specific projects. It would be nice to have a more sturdy lathe, but I find I can do accurate work on it and produce truly round wheels, so it will do until I have either the money or the inclination to upgrade.

Simon, do let us know how you get on and we can see a picture of the modified wheels.

Philip
Last edited by Philip Hall on Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Tim V
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby Tim V » Tue Dec 08, 2020 2:23 pm

Those wheels look pretty easy to make from scratch (as you have a lathe) which may be a better starting point.
Tim V
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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby andrewnummelin » Thu Dec 10, 2020 11:18 am

It looks to me as though the wheel is a single piece of metal with a plastic bush between it and the axel. If so, I think the best approach may be
- make a mandrel to hold a wheel, rather like
little and large 003.JPG

- thin down the back of the flange
- finish the flange by eye if you can't get hold of a form tool
- thin the front of the wheel by filing or milling.

Don't forget to chamfer the edge of the front of the tyre...

A more sophisticated mandrel could have pegs to fit the holes in the wheel and an outer clamp to hold the flange while the front is turned down.

There again it might be better to simply follow Tim's good advice.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Regards,

Andrew Nummelin

chris_mccarthy

Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby chris_mccarthy » Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:24 pm

On a couple of occasions when I’ve needed very small wheels for odd P4 projects I’ve used N-gauge metal tyred, plastic centred, wagon or coach wheels (NOT 2mmFS wheels, as these are significantly too narrow for my comfort and I observed didn’t run as well through P4 track formations).

I found that standard N-gauge wheels of these types run smoothly through P4 flangeways without any adaption at all. I think I wrote this up in Scalefour News a few years ago.

Smaller diameter, and of course shorter, axles than we are used to need to be addressed but can be replaced with either longer rod of the same diameter or the wheels drilled out for, say, standard 2mm axles. Several ways of skinning that cat!

Hope that helps,

Chris

chris_mccarthy

Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby chris_mccarthy » Sun Dec 13, 2020 12:14 pm

In case anyone is interested in following up I've now looked out my article on the comparative dimensions for P4, 2mmFS and N-gauge rolling stock wheels and my experience of testing them on my layout.

This was in Scalefour News Issue 175, page 12 of (gulp - was it really so long ago?) December 2011. Unfortunately this is one of the minority of Scalefour News editions that has not (yet?) been digitised on the Society archive site. I'd be happy to scan a copy of the article for anyone who wants one; just send me a PM.

As far as my experience as a user over the intervening years is concerned, the findings I described then about the suitability of N-gauge rolling stock wheels for P4 trackwork remain valid.

Best wishes to everyone for a Happy Christmas and a much better 2021.

Chris

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Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sun Dec 13, 2020 12:45 pm

chris_mccarthy wrote:In case anyone is interested in following up I've now looked out my article on the comparative dimensions for P4, 2mmFS and N-gauge rolling stock wheels and my experience of testing them on my layout.

This was in Scalefour News Issue 175, page 12 of (gulp - was it really so long ago?) December 2011. Unfortunately this is one of the minority of Scalefour News editions that has not (yet?) been digitised on the Society archive site.
Chris

That issue IS in the archive. :)
As the one who originally set up the archive I did an awful lot of scanning. Please advise of any issues that are really missing.
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Keith
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chris_mccarthy

Re: 00/EM wheels turned down to 18.83 standards

Postby chris_mccarthy » Sun Dec 13, 2020 5:51 pm

I’ve now found them as Keith mentions and PM’d Keith about some anomalies in the web search facility that gave rise to my comment.
Chris


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