Wheel flange angle

Hi all,

Happily chomping away at my wheel castings and have come to the flange angle.

On my drawing there is no angle for the flange and no coning of the tread. I've seen the SM&EEME recommendations of a 2 degree tread and 20 degree flange angle. The cone angle is no problem but my little Myford topslide won't revolve enough to cut the 20 degrees on the flange. I understand the coning helps with a differential effect on bends but is the flange angle necessary?

Loco is 7 1\4 0-6-0 Hermes.

Jimmy

Yes, if you have straight up flanges they scrape the rails on corners. I use a brazed carbide form tool with the correct root radius and the cutting face at the flange angle. HSS would be OK if you take it steady. You should really have done it all at one setting, makes it easier to get them all the same size and concentric, but it sounds as though it's too lae for that.

Flange angle is absolute necessity as Duncan said, so also is the radius between flange and tread. Without these you are building a moving derailment machine that will find every tiny irregularity in the track.

Don't understand why your topslide can't be rotated to get the 20 degrees for the flange - I don't have a myford but my 90-year old Ideal could do it no problem, just had to rotate it in the opposite direction so the topslide feed handwheel was at the back and work 'backwards'. I used a round-nose tool ground to the correct radius for the flange/tread interface and took it easy, measure three times, cut once then measure again. Don't have the benefit of graduated dials on such an old machine .

To the confused:- The original Myford ML7 top slide would only rotate to about 45° from parallel to the bed, 60° with a bit of rearrangement.

To Jimmy:- Make a pair lengths of T-nut bar longer than the cross slide is wide, or make/get some flat stock that will fit into the lower part of the cross slide T slots. Arrange this so it is overhanging both sides of the cross slide. Now take another couple of pieces of flat stock that have tapped holes in them and hold them below the first pair, beside and parallel to the cross slide. Rotate the top slide and use screws to clamp it to the pieces beside the cross slide.

The bits don't have to be fixed together, since the clamping screws will hold everything in place once they're done up.

Guess how I learned this trick?

Edited By Mark Rand on 25/03/2018 16:32:03