Reprofile of Heljan diesel railbus wheels to finescale profile

Eastsidepilot

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
Richard Gawler said:
After I made my last post, I realised I would not let myself be defeated. I had read somewhere the wheels are brass so they will turn easily. So I mounted them up in the 4-jaw chuck with a brass shim around the treads to discourage marking, and skimmed about 0.2 mm off the backs.

View attachment 235919
This has taken the B2B up to around 29.2 to 29.4 mm.
Click to expand...
F/S standards state 29.00 mm btb but depending on the flange width this should be increased to get an o/a flange dimension of 30.75 mm.
As for the Slaters wagon wheel sets don't always assume they are correct, I've known S7 and F/S sets come out of the packet with varying dimensions so they should always be checked with a gauge.
 
RichardG

RichardG

Western Thunderer
The railbus received some running-in this afternoon. A friend of a friend has built a demountable garden railway, and this creation fits neatly into two cars and then a nearby village hall. There is a double-track mainline with c.11 ft radius curves at each end, and the railway supports DCC and analogue operation.

Well, with a Dapol pannier tank with four suburban coaches running on the analogue controller, it was straightforward to place the railbus on the track just in front of the pannier and get nearly two circuits of running before catching up with its passenger train.

Clearly the railbus is better than a pannier. The railbus has smaller wheels but it goes a lot faster. Probably more usefully, the railbus ran through all of the points (these are all Peco ones) without trouble. The wheel thinning excercise was worthwhile.
 
Yorkshire Dave

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
Richard Gawler said:
DSC_9343.jpeg

I think the railbus is worth a photo. The newly-thinned wheels don't look so bad, but the misalignment of the axleboxes might be here forever.
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The skimmed wheels certainly look better. Not too sure about the axlebox misalignment though. I think it is an optical illusion compounded by the model wheels having larger than prototypical wheel centre boss in order to accommodate the insulating bush - which is obviously not on the prototype - and possibly the axlebox and support being slightly narrower than scale width.

https://flic.kr/p/2nYDorD
https://flic.kr/p/x8GvG8
AC Cars Railbus

Not as nice (or as successful) as the VT95 and VT98 though :).
 
RichardG

RichardG

Western Thunderer
Yorkshire Dave said:
Not too sure about the axlebox misalignment though. I think it is an optical illusion compounded by the model wheels having larger than prototypical wheel centre boss in order to accommodate the insulating bush - which is obviously not on the prototype - and possibly the axlebox and support being slightly narrower than scale width
Click to expand...

The centres of the axles are sitting below the centres of the axleboxes (about a millimetre) but as you suggest, the appearance looks worse than it is by having the wheel centre boss there.

There is plenty of meat in the boss on the back of the wheel - I can investigate skimming off the part on the front if I take the wheels out for reprofiling. Right now the model does run, so I had best leave well alone.
 
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