Back into the machine shop to do some machinist work turning some railroad wheels from cast steel on the Lodge & Shipley metal lathe. This job is for the Veterans Memorial Park in Bristol, FL to use on their 24" narrow gauge railroad.
Interesting project; nice to see some chips again. I taught myself to put the right amount of pressure on a micrometer by closing down on known sizes (gauge blocks) until I could arrive at the exact (known) measurement with my eyes shut. Practise that way with several different micrometers until you hit the correct measurement pretty well every time. Get in the habit of measuring several times and measure a few more times if your measurements aren't all the same. If you discover that one of your micrometers errs consistently, it may have been calibrated by someone with a different "touch" than you have. Time to recalibrate it to match your touch.
On a 0-1 inch, couldnt you close it all the way and the pressure it takes to go exactly to zero is the pressure you want to shoot for when taking a measurement. Thatd be a pretty quick way to know exactly how much pressure for that particular mic.
I have a small lathe and mill I do machining on in my shop and always enjoy watching someone else that has more experience at it then I do. I always learn something new by watching others. Fantastic videos. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Keith, good to see you back in the shop taking a break and having a bit of fun. I am looking forward to the CNC update to this project. I saw Adam's collaboration with NYC CNC and am interested in learning the basics of CNC work. Thanks again!
At 7:30 you mentioned burning up a HSS tool while taking a light cut. From what I've read, cast metal hardens at the surface and often has some sand in the surface. I suppose it is a quenching effect of the sand combined with the carbon content of the steel. In any case, a heavier cut is better than light. Some of the old-time books recommend hand-chiseling off the outer layer before machining, if you can imagine that. And I think the radius is probably the worst place to test because the large contact area combined with the shallow cut.
Hey Keith in my early years I worked at the Swedish Crucible Foundry in Hamtramck MI. and we cast bogey wheels for military tanks. When inclusions were found in the castings using Xrays we would arc air the inclusions out and then weld over them. It saves the part. If it was good enough for the U S military it should be ok for a little train wheel.
+Gord Taylor funny, i was thinking along the same line.. it's cast steel not cast iron so welding up a hole in the casting shouldn't be much of an issue
+Gord Taylor The problem is that now I am pretty convinced that these are ductile cast iron rather than cast steel. It sure would have been nice if they knew what these were made from....
John: would you consider doing 26 inch trolley wheels or larger interurban wheels? I’ m hoping they are not stew-pot steel like Kieth had to machine. Judging by the sparks he had a few ball bearings in the melt.
My wife actually made me write "NO"on my phone when she was pregnant with our first. Always seemed to get in over my head helping friends and family. Be careful, now you have 60 thou friends that might have project for a nice guy with unlimited tooling. No shame in telling friends you bit off more then u can chew, especially if projects might turn into boat anchors. Thx for vid and nice seeing you doing projects again.
Oh that's cool... I went on a field trip with my conservation biology class to camp at Torreya State Park and visit The Nature Conservancy, and we went through Bristol. Bristol is a tiny, one stop light town (Along with 2 gas stations, a dollar store, and a library.), that you wouldn't realize was a town unless you were paying attention.
Identifying unknown alloys is easy with an Xray Florescence Spectroscope, like the Niton XL3p+ XRF Analyzer from ThermoFisher Scientific. Other instrument companies make these too. The testing is 100% non-destructive, only a buffed out area free of tarnish is needed to read a sample. Invite the local ThermoFisher Scientific rep over for a video shoot; I've found them to be very accommodating. The XL3p looks like a hand-held ray gun from a 1950s sci-fi movie. My group started restoring a rare 1955 Freightliner cab-over semi-tractor in 2005 at the Portland, Oregon, Freightliner plant (now known as Daimler Trucks). Many aerospace alloys were plentiful just after the Korean War, and this truck took full advantage - there were aluminum and magnesium alloy parts all over it that normally would have been made from steel, and in later model years went back to conventional materials. Our local ThermoFisher Scientific came by and shot readings on any number of "mystery metals"; we learned in seconds just what we had. Not to wear out our welcome, when new parts needed metallurgical identification and it would have been too soon to ask ThermoFisher Scientific to come over again, I cut out a tiny sample from an inconspicuous location and sent it to a local lab for analysis at a cost of about $40. And before I forget, the ThermoFisher Scientific Niton XL3p+ XRF Analyzer costs about $30,000. Most big scrap yards have one and will do tests for a fee.
Hello Keith, Nice to see again a bit shop work and see you working at the laid, but I also always like the odds&ends. Maybe next year the first shop work video's are in your new own shop, but it takes time of course. Looking forward to the next one and many greetings from Roel !
Have been watching some of your videos with enjoyment. I worked for a company in Morganton, NC that made mold stock (synthetic graphite) for a customer that cast RR wheels. Also, in one of you other videos you were talking about the history of your Vulcan locomotive and mentioned Bridgewater. Bridgewater is an area on Hwy 70W outside of Morganton, NC. The project you mentioned was the construction of Lake James about 5 miles from my home. Was glad to know you have an old engine from that project that you maintain. The company I mentioned that I worked for earlier owns a Diesel Electric engine that was purchased from a little mountain community here after they shut down their little RR. The engine is the 1950's era and was featured in National Geographic when it was still used in the mountain mining community. The part of the history you mentioned related to Virginia and the construction of a tunnel also caught my attention. I was curious if that was the construction of the only tunnel on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Va. Keep up the good work...if you are ever in this area, visit the Narrow Gauge Museum in Newton, NC.
Crown Metal Products made trains in 15 inch and 24 inch before starting to make 36 inch models in 1964. I believe the first 36 inch locomotive they made is now at the Jefferson & Cypress Bayou RR in Jefferson, TX. All Crown locos are 4-4-0's and extremely simple to aid in maintenance and operation. They are very forgiving in operation.
Thanks for that Keith, perhaps I should have known that, but it has been 40+ years since I turned anything. Maybe I should get one of the blokes at my Men's Shed too retrain me.
+one4stevo I am not questioning their engineering on their cars. I looked at some of the videos they have on RU-vid and this is a pretty small gauge they are running - much smaller equipment than what we have at our museum.
Great video! I have found that when I melt cast iron in my furnace for a mold (which I don't do often), If you break the mold right away and let it cool fast it results in a material that is VERY HARD. Completely eats away high speed steel bits. I am willing to bet cast steel behaves in the same manner.
Can't remember who did it in a video but i saw a guy make a basic home made tracer for something like this. He basically used the bottom half of his steady rest , and bolted a profile pattern to it. He then attached a follower finger/pointer to the tool rest, positioned to follow the edge of the pattern which is just to the right of the toolrest, attached to the lathe bed. He just used the steady rest base just as a mounting device to attach the pattern to a stationary part of the lathe because it was convenient. There are a million ways to do it with clamps, scrap and duct tape......
Cant find the video but here is an article with exactly the setup i am referring too. www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/a-simple-manual-tracing-attachment-for-any-lathe.19162/ I bet this is almost as fast as cnc on this job, can be done at home (for you) and also would make for a pretty good video.
Another great video Keith! Looks like cast iron from the chips and finish. If it's ductile iron, the inclusions may not be much a problem vs. brittle gray iron, but the foundry should replace the casting regardless. Not surprised it wiped out a HSS cutter, the outer skin can get chilled and super hard if they knock it out of the sand quickly. One can grind off the skin with an angle grinder to get under it and also really slow down the spindle speed. Of course carbide tool helps. I used to design castings for farm machinery. At the factory we would weld 65-45-12 grade ductile iron to steel all the time with a wire welder for certain applications. Austempered ductile iron would be awesome in this application for both strength and wear. Hub micrometer, now that's cool. I want one.
As a side note; The wheels for the locomotives made in the 19th century were made of Cast Iron due to the Irons' good wearability. The difference was that the Iron was Malleable Iron, and later Nodular Iron. Iron that had either been put through the forging process or heat treated to reduce the graphitic carbon present in just-cast Cast Iron.
+sandrammer Interesting. I seem to recall hearing that information before now that you mention it. I am not 100% certain that these are cast steel - they may be ductile cast iron.
Hi Keith thanks for sharing. A friend of mine owns a professional machine shop here in the UK. He machines railcar wheels that are about 30" in diameter on his big L & S lathe. All done by hand not CNC. I would have thought that the only critical measurements were the running surface angle and the radius in the root of the flange. That 1" bore does seem extremely small for a railcar even if it is a miniature. I look forward to the next video on the project. regards from the UK
+Gary C It can be done manually, but due to the hardness of the material and it eating HSS cutters, I think that using a single point carbide insert will be a better way of getting the job done, and that will be easier on a CNC lathe. Too bad I don't have a tracing attachment on our L&S lathe - that is what a lot of the railroad shops use for wheel profiles.
These wheels will be very lightly loaded so I think the inclusions can be filled and ignored. Given the apparent hardness I suggest stacking the raw castings in a few bags of charcoal and heating them to above the annealing temperature then burying the whole mess in dirt and let them take a couple of days to cool. That should make machining easier. Using HSS cutters on hardened cast steel is necessary. I ruined and reground a number of HSS tools before I could get stepdad to do a lunchbox purchase of some carbide inserts and holders from the old ALCO machine shop. Those cutters worked.
When I was there last November and saw you machining that first one, I was pretty sure that those guys weren't going to ever make many of them on their own. Machining a couple would be interesting, but a dozen or two would get old! I do remember how far those tiny chips were flying that day, and I can see a few on your scalp in the wrap-up section of your video. Good luck.
+Jack Hoying Yep, it was those same castings I was messing with the day that you came. And you did comment before you left "you know you are going to have to machine all of those don't you?" And I replied, "yeah, I see it coming..."
When I was about 12 yo my stepfather told me to machine 24 (three cars worth) train wheels out of 6 in bar stock for his amusement park railroad. This was an after school winter project. It took about 8 weeks as the shop took longer and longer to warm up in an upstate NY winter. The project also included 12 axles. I was using an antique belt driven lathe without any graduations on the cross or compound slides. I learned a lot in that shop but the most Importent was how to keep a drunk out of the way. If anyone knows of the fate of The Carolyn Road I would appreciate hearing from them.
Keith, these wheels look warped from the casting process. Since this small railroad will only be operated at walking speeds, the warpage may not cause a significant imbalance. Fine work with the machining. Many thanks.
It even sounds hard!!! 50 thou seemed quite a generous cut but I suppose with the big lathe it works OK... certainly seemed to. Pretty big inclusion showed up... pity after your work on it. Love the hub micrometer - super useful.
+ChrisB257 If you experiment, you can really start pushing your machine. I've found I can do at least 100 thou on my little 10 inch swing lathe, Adam Booth (Abom79) pushed 1 1/4" on his monarch. What seemed high to me was his surface feet per minute. I would have been afraid to go over 50RPM.
+justfakeit888 Adam sure can push some cuts on the Monarch. My lathe is pretty old and it's rare I take more than about 25-30 thou off radius at a time (ie, 50-60 total). I am used to working slow! :)
I once saw a guy profile a set of full size steam engine wheels in a wheel lathe that could take an 8ft pair of wheels and that was something. Hope you can video the cnc work.The castings could be iron, as it will be slow speed work and the thrust on the flange will be low, but I wouldn't like to work a train with a wheel with an occlusion like that on it as that flange could go at any time with bad consequences even at low speed.
A wheel lathe - I have seen a couple of those machines. There is one at the Illinois Railway Museum and another at the Tennessee Valley Railway Museum.
Could that pitting from inclusions be drilled out and filled with weld metal, then machined off? Seems such a waste after all that work to have to reject it
Isn't that wheel profile just a radius and a straight taper? Doesn't seem that is complicated enough to have to use a cnc lathe. By those chips I would say that is ductile iron. There is no load on that flange except in a turn so I highly doubt you could pull sideways on a car hard enough to break that flange off from that small inclusion. I actually think you probably would break that little 1" axle off first. lol
+bcbloc02 ... i agree.. v the inclusion out.. fill it with brass so it wont rust and good to go.... Brian i'm jonesing for the next shop/barn video fix... hurry.. lol
carryit around Could you please make it stop raining everyday so I can get something done? I want to get a little more done before I shoot the next update so you can tell I have done something. lol
+bcbloc02 It's not the inclusions that you can see, it's what might be hiding elsewhere in the casting... Also, while these are for a low speed operation, I think that they are for cars that carry people, and you just don't fool around with the safety regulations in that service...
+bcbloc02 There are four radii that have to be cut (both concave and convex) plus the taper. It could be don't on a manual machine if I could use a couple of cutters with the correct radius, but because HSS won't touch this stuff, I think it would be easier to just single point everything on a CNC lathe. As for the inclusions, they have plenty of extra castings and they don't want to take the chance on what may be hiding in that casting that we have not uncovered yet.
+Keith Rucker - VintageMachinery.org Really, HSS won't touch that stuff? Or was it just burning it up because you couldn't get the RPMs low enough or what? I couldn't imagine it being that hard.
In my 19 years of restoring steam locomotives material identification was often an issue. Try sparking it with a side wheel grinder. Also spark known iron and steel. The sparks will identify it. From the sparks I saw and the chips I'm guessing gray iron. The 1" axle worries me. Love your videos. Thanks.
With all the machining required to correct these castings for use, why would you not start with a billet? The cost of patterning the wheel, sending it to a foundry and the casting costs would seem to outweigh the additional machining time. Really appreciate your channel Keith and congratulations on the new shop.
+TheTraakon If I had been the one starting this project, that is probably how I would have gone about it. But that was not the route the guys I am doing this for decided to go.
+Keith Rucker - VintageMachinery.org Understood. Sometimes you just get to ride the train not decide its route. Thanks for all the continuing education you provide.
I think you should have drilled the center in the same grip-position in which you turn the outer running surface. It would make sure it runs true. There won't be a big difference but it avoids any risk of wobble.
+jahobr The outer running surface will be turned on mandrel going through the drilled hole so that it will indeed run true. Because I am having to chuck the part on the outer surface, there is not good way to hold the part where I can turn the outer surface and drill the hub in one operation.
Awesome Job! they look good! Sorry about the one wheel being a bugger! We run a Propane powered engine as well as a Gas powered engine and our crown :)
+Joe Tiller The trains are pretty small too so they are probably just fine. There are some videos on RU-vid of this operation, much smaller scale than what we run at our museum.
Great video! Looking forward to seeing you complete these later. I'm building a 2-1/2" scale 2-cylinder shay locomotive for a 7.5" gauge railroad that will have eight 6.125" drivers (tread diameter). For those of us who don't have access to a CNC lathe, would you consider making a video on how to manually machine wheel flanges and treads to IBLS standards? Thanks!
+cr125shifter My original plan was to manually machine these, but my HSS cutters won't cut the material. I would have to hand grind a cutter with the correct radius for the flanges but this is not as feasible using carbide.
I was surprised that you didn't sand blast the area between the "hub" and the outer turning. I would think that they would probably paint that area, for asthetic reasons, and sand blasting BEFORE turning that area would eliminate any sand blasting "marks" on the area that you had already cleaned up.
good job turning them, i agree that they should scrap that one with the inclusions in it. those trains will be transporting people so no need in pushing the limit. better safe then sorry. on another note. i have tried sending you a couple of messages but not sure if you got them.
+Jay Walt If I were building them from scratch, I would probably want a bigger axle, but they are basically re-building some existing cars and that was the way they were made. Having never seen them, I don't think I will question them too hard. It is a smaller gauge railroad afterall.
The axles are loaded principally in shear, and not flexure. Since the car-load consists only of passengers, it will be light (maybe several hundred pounds). It is probably OK, but I'd do a little pencil-and-paper stress analysis if I was involved.
Talk to Saunders (NYC CNC) he does quite a bit of CNC work. He Also does training, so he might be able to give you some pointers, or reference material.
:) Ibuilt my own CNC machine over the winter, just because i was bored.. i have to say, it was a pretty fun project. Most difficult part for me, was i had to mill all the 1/2 aluminum parts using a compound vice on a drill press.. That being said, i still managed to stay within 0.05mm tolerances... Pretty crazy..
Inclusions like that, I would have taken it off the lathe and drilled them out a bit to clean it up a little, then welded it. The put it back on the lathe and machine it down. That is a lot of metal to just toss and reforge. (in my opinion)
If those castings are steel, the customer can have the inclusions and voids cut out then filled in with welds. If not, brazing could work. I would not recommend that you do that on your own. The customer must take that risk upon themselves. Great video. Thanks, John
Nice job as usual Keith. I'm a bit surprised that the high speed cutters wouldn't work, yet the drills did okay.. could it be that the surface layer was the issue, once you broke through then the material became softer so to speak? like a case hardened piece? As a "Newb" still, just trying to learn! Thanks. Razor!
The profile that you have left to turn should actually be a slight curve with the radius specified by the Florida museum, rather than a straight taper. It has to do with the concept of a ball (the wheel profile) rolling between two pipes (the rail profile) to make it self centering. That type of machining used to be done with a tracer attachment on the lathe.
+Shop Dave Exactly - it is a taper with several radii around edge and the flange. A tracer attachment would be a nice way to do this, if I had a tracer attachment....
DeWalt (and I imagine other manufacturers of various items) used to refer to their radial arm saw castings as "semi-steel," which I took in part to be an advertising term suggesting that the material was higher in quality than just "cast iron." I've never found a definitive identification of semi-steel, just an assumption that there's more steel in the crucible, sort of a hybrid between grey iron and steel. Watching your drill chips made me think in terms of a semi-steel. It wasn't the powdery crumbs of iron, but it never formed a string like steel, either. Seems like the wheels would be resistant enough to shock, considering the load and ignoring the casting defects, but like others, I really want to see the axle design.
+Wayne Jones I don't like using oil or cutting fluid on cast material - the chips turn into a fine dust that can be very abrasive on my machines. Easier to clean up dry and less likely to wash into areas I cannot clean if I use oil.
I've been turning for many a year and I'm sure those wheels are of cast iron going by the sparks caused by the ingress of casting sand and also the swarf coming off, In my younger day we never had carbide inserts just H.S.S, and had to go much slower, I'm surprized you are going to ask your friend to use his C.N.C. lathe, you could probably finish the four wheels off on your own lathe quicker than programing his lathe.
I have about decided these are ductile iron - which is a good choice for the wheels. The profile would be hard to make on my manual lathe - we tried on one of the castings but to do it right, we need to grind a profile in HSS and these wheels are just eating up the HSS.
Phil, The problem is they are not as easy to turn in a straight manual lathe as you would think. Depending on the customer you are looking a 1 in 20 or a 1 in 40 taper leading in to several of centerline radius of which there are many oddball features. So, you have your choice, all of which I have done in my day, spend your day at the grinder grinding some Rex 95 form tools only to have a hard spot kick you. Or you can go to a tracer lathe and take the time to make you a pattern, or you go to a CNC and do a program. I can tell you the Tracer and CNC lathe options are the way to go especially if you have some hard cutting material.
Mr.Rucker thank you for video and effort to do it. Now question: is it safe to run the equipment at 4x speed in post production or do you need additional atachments to secure it more?? How bout balance issues??( please read it with scence of humor ) ; )
Can you weld cast steel? Is drilling the inclusions out to remove the bad material and then using stick electrodes to fill the holes a option. Love all of your videos and I plan to stop at the musem the next time I am down that way.
Cast steel can usually be welded quite easily unless it has a high carbon content, in which case pre-heating and post-heating might be necessary. If it is cast iron like some people here are suggesting, it´s a different story. I guess the decision about what to do about the inclusions depends on if the other wheel castings have the same defects and how much time and effort it´s worth to get rid of the inclusions, and of course if it´s steel or iron. For the intended application (slow moving, light duty train) I don´t really see that the defects are critical, but more of a cosmetic issue. If the inclusions are left "untreated" water and dirt could be trapped and cause corrosion, but I guess that could be solved by grinding the rough edges with a rotary burr. Can´t wait to see the next video :-)
The more I work with these wheels, the more I am becoming convinced that they are actually cast ductile iron rather than steel. So, welding is pretty much out of the question.
Now that I have finished all of the other seven castings, I feel much better as the rest of them did not have any inclusions at all. I think it was just one bad casting - which happens.
Hi Keith just throwing mud on the wall here, I was thinking that has to be cast steel due to the color of the sparks I saw in the video. Could those inclusions be milled / drilled to good steel then pre heated and welded back using flux cored wire then machined off to save the casting?
+DS75921 I am still not 100% certain, but the more I work with this material, the more I think it is actually ductile cast iron. The sparks were actually coming from the inclusions and not from the good material on the casting...
Keith, Fascinating. I was very interested in the way you established a machined surface for reference on the rest. That thing looked like a dog's hind leg. Could you tell me why you did not use any cutting fluid? Was it because you think it was cast iron? Thanks, Ian
I don't typically use a cutting fluid on cast material because the chips come off in a fine and abrasive dust rather than a chip like you get with steel. If you use a cutting fluid, you can wash that abrasive material down on the ways and into other parts of the machine that will cause a lot of wear to your machinery.
