Polished wheel treads for freight cars

[Anonymous]

I have noticed from pictures in MR that many modelers some how polished the wheel treads to a bright silver on their frieght cars. How is this done? I have replaced most of my athearn plastic wheels with Kadee metal wheels, but they come with a black finsh on the wheel treads. Also, is there any corrosion problems with removing this black fini***o expose the shinny metal underneath. Anybody know the pros and cons?

[Anonymous]

Previous modelers have stated that the KD black finish eventually wears off(on to the track) but IMO that could take a long time. I'm running KD box cars and there are still traces of black on the wheels.This is one of the reasons modelers choose Proto sets. Remember, axle sets are not all created equal and come in various lengths. P2K, 1.008, IM 1.013, KD 1.018 ( Thanks Nigel)

There may be merit in using GOO GONE. If so, saturate a cotton cloth(old t-shirt) lay it across the tracks and roll the car back & forth. Follow up removing Goo Gone with a treated cloth of Isopropyl
rubbing alcohol

Anything stronger , you run the risk of getting the removal on the car finish. I'm sure there are better ideas out there. Lets hear from you.

[cacole]

Replacement wheelsets come in different metals and different colors according to manufacturer. Those shiny wheelsets in the pictures are probably Intermountain or Proto 2000. LBF wheelsets are rust colored, Kadee are black, and IHC are shiny aluminum or chromed. Quite a few people have commented about the black coating on Kadee wheels wearing off and leaving crud on the rail, but I have not noticed this problem. I recently went through all of my rolling stock and replaced every Kadee with LBF wheelsets because they roll so much better, even in Kadee trucks. Atlas, Proto 2000, LBF, or Intermountain are now on all of my rolling stock, and I can pull much longer trains than I could with Kadee wheels.

[Anonymous]

Hi all, with respect to the various wheel lengths, has anyone noticed that Athearn has changed the wheel length on their new Ready to Roll line of cars? I use to be able to use Kadee replacement wheels in the Athearn trucks, but not any more, they are to tight. I am not sure what the new wheel length is for the metal wheels that Athearn is using. It also appears that the metal wheels Athearn is using has changed over the last few months. The metal wheels that they first came out with were completely black. The wheels sets that have come out lately do not have the black coating on the wheel treads, they are left shinny silver, which is exactly what I want. So now I am stuck with the delema of finding replacement wheels that fit the new wheel length or polishing off the black finish on all their older black metal wheels. I'll give the Goo be Gone method a try and see what happens. Thanks all.

[Anonymous]

Jeffjar,
I ran into this also. I don't care for plastic wheels. The only rolling stock on my rails with plastic is the Hogwarts Express as I've not found an appropriate replacement set yet. The new Athearn axels mic'd at .80", the P2K are 1.10". I replaced mine with Kadee 100 ton because that's what was readily available for me. I see that Atlas offers their trucks separetly so may get a set to try out.

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing you have the Bachmann Hogwarts Express as the Hornby one has all metal wheels - not sure what size wheels the Bachmann cars have but if they're the same size as their other British passenger stock wheels then they offer these seperately - www.ehattons.com/Stock.asp?SID=6992 is this type. Hornby also offer disc wheelsets but these are a slightly smaller diameter than Bachmann.

[Anonymous]

Matt,
Good guess. It's Bachmann. I see the page you referred me to is Bachmann wheels also so I'll take a flier and buy them. Thanks for the lead. Wheel size are 0.555" diameter, axel length 1.022", axel diameter 0.094".
Thanks,
Mike

[bogp40]

Back to the polished treads. All my replacement wheelsets end up painted (mostly roof brown to weathered black). I'll paint them all at at time, varying coloring, and try to have finished ones on hand. After painting , the treads need cleaning, I do this w #400 wet or dry rolled to keep a nice curled edge. JB, Kaydee and some others have blackened treads and require more work. But go easy, the nickel silver coat is very thin, you will be showing brass in no time. A good note for weathering trucks- remove the wheelsets before airbrushing. this way you eliminate the chance of over spray on the wheels (strobe look when rolling) not very attractive.
Bob K.

[tomwatkins]

I run mostly Kadees and poli***he wheel treads before I install them. I use a wire wheel in a dremel, which cleans them up very quickly. Since I started doing this, quite a long time ago, I've had to do a lot less rail cleaning.
Tom Watkins

[twhite]

I've replaced all of my plastic wheel sets with P2K's and Intermountain--the result is that I can run much longer trains than I used to. I'll probably start replacing the Kadee-equipped cars also, since I've been hearing threads about the wheel-treads leaving gunk on the rails as the finish wears down. When you've got a garage railroad, believe me, the WORST thing in the world is gunk from wheelsets--there's enough of it flying around anyway. Of the two brands I'm using, the P2K's seem to be the most universal as far as fitting them to trucks without having to do any adjusting. The Intermountains can be a little finicky sometimes--depending upon the particular brand of car that you're working on-- but they DO roll very well after some adjusting. They also have a slightly blackened finish on the wheel itself, which is not always true of the P2K's. I'll have to say that I don't care for the metal wheelsets that come with the Yardmaster freight car kits, I buy a flat of P2K's every time I make a raid on my LHS, so I'll have plenty of spares built up for my new Yardmaster and Accurail cars. Funny thing is, that I remember back when my Athearn and Silver Streak cars ALL came with metal wheels in the trucks. Does that date me a little?
Tom

[Anonymous]

Here's a cheap alternative that may clean up those KDs
A craftman 3/4 " Dia, brass brush wheel in the tool section. It's a soft bru***hat won't scratch soft metals.
Use it in a variable speed drill.