Sourcing Mild steel for plain wheels

[Paul McDonoughParticipant @paulmcdonough43628]

Hello, I am new to the locomotive game, I am struggling to buy easy machining mild steel from which to make 8 No. plain wheels for my diesel loco. The finished wheels are 9.5mm thick and 72mm in diameter at the tip of the flange. I assumed that I would be able to buy material supplier cut disks (rough) say 3″ or 75mm dia and 13mm thick so that i could machine them down to size on a mandrel.

However, all of my text books suggest cutting the discs your self from flat bar. This seems vey wasteful and hard on my tools just to get a blank.

Am I missing something here? I thought that with the advent of water cutting getting steel disc blanks might be possible, even sensible?

Are there companies that can supply standard size machined blank wheels? Again I have seen some reasonably priced wheels out there but only for one particular size which is a smidge too small for my loco.

I hope that you can cast some experience on this matter. Cheers

[Julie AnnParticipant @julieann]

Look at M-Machine in Darlington; they will cut blanks to length from appropriately sized round bar.

Julie

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

As Julie says I have also used M-machine to cut slices to length. The advantage of round over flat bar is you are also more likely to get a freer machining steel. 75mm dia EN1A would be nice to work with.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

speak to your local lazer cutter ! Cut from 10mm plate they will be fine. Noel.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

About twice the price for laser cut S275 from the cutters I have used previously and it is not such a nice steel to machine.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

According to folklore, wheels made from plate tend to wear oval. This is reputed to be because rolled plate has a grain different in the direction of rolling than transverse. This probably doesn’t matter in a model, but starting from slices of round bar is easier anyway.

[vintagengineerParticipant @vintagengineer]

Try Rapid Metals

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Rapid looks a good price, I’ve only bought 1m lengths of steel from them in the past where they were also a good buy.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>If you don’t mind producing a lot of swarf I have 8 pieces 4″ diameter an up to 1″ thick which you can have for the cost of postage, or collect north cheshire. They already have a hold in the centre, if this is interesting I’ll dig them out and measure properly</p>

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Have you thought about 17D miniature?

[Stuart Smith 5Participant @stuartsmith5]

Or these from SMR engineering:

https://smrengineering.co.uk/products/312-gauge-wheel

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

If you can wait until the next exhibition you can often phone in an order to be picked up there saving postage. Slight risk if you don’t make it to the show though. Last time I did that was with Noggin End at the Midlands show.

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