Narrow gauge tramway loco

[Bernd]

I've never built locomotives and I admire your work.
It's beautiful !

Thank you very much.

It has taken many years on the acquisition of tooling and failed projects.

Bernd

[Ray Dunakin]

Nice work!

[finescalerr]

Inspirational. -- Russ

[Hauk]

The same problem with the wheels. After a long back and forth and after looking up the various standards I had to realise that the wheels don't fit any of these standards – they were too narrow. So I am going to design my own wheels. Here a first attempt. No idea, if these printed steel parts are machinable at all...

The engine seems to be progressing very well!
But who printed the metal wheels?

And I´m looking forward to hear how the machining of the wheels turned out!

[Peter_T1958]

Hi Hauk

As you know, first I wanted to use Slaters wheels. But you can make it out here: they are more then one millimeter too wide.



The idea with the printed steel wheels came up when I received the price calculation from «my» watchmaker. A brass wheel with a steel tyre would have been far too expensive. So I printed the whole wheel in Fine Detail Steel at i.materialise.com.

Cheers, Peter


P.S.  Some minutes ago my watchmaker wrote me, that the milling of the two prototypes was successful. I am very keen to see the result and will post an update here as soon as possible!

[Barney]

Superb - the detail is excellent
Barney

[Hauk]

The idea with the printed steel wheels came up when I received the price calculation from «my» watchmaker. A brass wheel with a steel tyre would have been far too expensive. So I printed the whole wheel in Fine Detail Steel at i.materialise.com.

Cheers, Peter


P.S.  Some minutes ago my watchmaker wrote me, that the milling of the two prototypes was successful. I am very keen to see the result and will post an update here as soon as possible!

I fully understand your concern for the wheels.
When you are going to dress up, the shoes are important!

Looking forward to see the machined wheels.

[Peter_T1958]

When you are going to dress up, the shoes are important!Looking forward to see the machined wheels.

And here they are. To me they look quite fine and so I ordered some plastic insulations from shapeways to put together one prototype wheelset. What do you mean with shoes? Brake shoes?

[finescalerr]

He is comparing wheels on a locomotive or on rolling stock to the shoes we wear. The wheels (i.e., locomotive "shoes") you produced really look good. -- Russ

[Hauk]

When you are going to dress up, the shoes are important!Looking forward to see the machined wheels.

And here they are. To me they look quite fine and so I ordered some plastic insulations from shapeways to put together one prototype wheelset.

The wheels look great!  Think I will try to test this route myself.
How well did the the dimensions of the printed parts compare with the STL-file you made?

[Peter_T1958]

Hi Håvard

So stupid! I didn't catch the saying with the shoe...

It's difficult to judge the accuracy of the dimensions after turning them on the lathe. As I can make out the wheel width is exactly 2.0 mm as drawn on the CAD program. And the inner wheel diameter (16.2 mm) matches exactly the drawing too. So I can't find any shrinkage...

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[Hauk]

Hi Håvard

So stupid! I didn't catch the saying with the shoe...

It's difficult to judge the accuracy of the dimensions after turning them on the lathe. As I can make out the wheel width is exactly 2.0 mm as drawn on the CAD program. And the inner wheel diameter (16.2 mm) matches exactly the drawing too. So I can't find any shrinkage...

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That sounds promising! My only concern is the price. I got a quote based on a wheel center around 17mm in diameter, and it clocked in at around 35 USD.
How much did you pay for your parts?

(Don´t worry about the shoes, that was just me trying to be clever... )

[Peter_T1958]

Just that's the point: One wheel cost 20.36 € postal charges not included. But since the entire project with all its trials and errors has become incalculable...

[Lawrence@NZFinescale]

This all looks really great.

On the issue of wheels and cost though:  It would be straightforward to resin print wheels in a castable material and then lost wax cast into bronze (or whatever).  Obviously you then need to machine and add a tire.

My experience doing this (and I've done quite a lot) is that it is much cheaper than the prices you mention.

Lawrence

[Peter_T1958]

Many thanks for your feedback! The difference to the other wheels is more then obvious and just that is the reason to follow this path!



@ Lawrence
As I do not have any machinery (Ok, a Proxxon drill and a soldering iron 😉) I have to bring all items to « my » watch maker and have to deal with his abilities. He didn't wanted to do «such complicate things»! And of course, this way is not less expensive at all...