DIY cold rolled rail profiles

[Bertil FjordensjöParticipant @bertilfjordensjo91003]

Is there anyone who has experience in cold roll soft iron or aluminium profile to rails profile 5 inch railway.. Do not know how much power it can go and how strong the design must be. But surely it should be possible to build such a thing yourself.

???????

[Bertil FjordensjöParticipant @bertilfjordensjo91003]

[julian atkinsParticipant @julianatkins58923]

in the UK there are quite a few commercial suppliers of both ali and steel vignoles section rail for 5"g at quite reasonable prices which are used by many UK ME club tracks. there are also a number of UK commercial suppliers marketing exhibition 'scale' track for display purposes.

i am actually thinking of milling some steel to 'bullhead' section as a display track for my current build as i am not aware of any bullhead rail to 5"g scale being available. getting scale bullhead chairs cast will be quite fun!

cheers,

julian

[BaldricParticipant @baldric]

You may want to look here **LINK** I have not used their track but do see them with signals etc. at the Midlands show.

[Bertil FjordensjöParticipant @bertilfjordensjo91003]

I have come to the conclusion that it is too expensive to buy ready-rail profiles of companies and additionally shipping cost to Sweden.
So I am looking at a way of making my own profiles.
Will be a lot of work if you're going to have a few hundred meters.
To set a flat iron on the edge works, but of course does not look so good.
How do you do that is not running at the club courses.
I will go to have it on a private lane in my garden.

regards

Bertil

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

I would think that it would be quite a problem to get a straight and true length of rail after rolling, years ago when I was working I got a little involved in aluminium extrusion,the dies were not really expensive the snag being that they wanted to deal in large quantities,the interesting part of the process was that when the aluminium came snaking out of the die at rapid speed ,it was far from straight,so the strip was cut into longish lengths and each strip was gripped at each end and the strip was stretched ,it resulted in a strip which was true and work hardened to make it a bit springy.One business produced cheaper tooling than others but would not allow visitors to see their toolroom. Years later when wire erosion came into use in other industries,I often wondered if the company had developed an early form of wire erosion and were keeping the process confidential.

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

Hi Bertil,

Full size rails are roll-formed white hot with a set of two powered rolls. There are usually several "stations" along these rolls to progressively form the rail profile. The bar moves through the rolls then is moved back through the next station, etc.

It could be done for model rail but would involve making the hard steel rolls and a sturdy frame to hold them, and finding a motor gearbox system to drive them. Probably 750 W or more of output power would be needed for driving the rolls, depending on size and heat of the rail. An induction heating coil setup could be used to heat the rail to white heat quickly and continuously as it is fed to the rolls. There are specialist suppliers of induction heating equipment for industry and for blacksmiths an knifemakers who could probably supply a suitable heater unit. Water cooling of the rolls (could just be a water hose sprinkler system over the rolls) would be needed to hold their hardness.

Some experimentation on the roll profiles and heating parameters will likely be needed as well as testing of the finished product to make sure it does not have cracks or other defects. There are some youtube videos of full size rail rolling to give you a general idea of the roll shapes and number of passes needed.

It's a rather big undertaking, but once set up, you could make a large quantity quickly a couple of times a year and maybe sell it to other clubs or hobbyists. Note that the profile of some British rails is a "bullhead" style that sits in cast chairs – this is quite different than the flat bottomed rails and tie-plates as used in North America and other countries around the world. JD

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