Steam Roller Wheels

Good evening all

I'm looking for a break from making live steam 16mm Narrow Gauge locos and G1, and so am looking to make a small live steam Roller. Perhaps this is a bit small for this forum but I'm looking to make the rear wheels about 5 1/2 ins diameter and haven't been able to find any castings so far. The smallest is for Minnie (6". So mlooking to fabricate them, I've found Aluminium Tube of the right size but then. how to fix the double "T" rings? Indeed what material to use? To cut these out of thin sheet brass or steel seems both laborious and wasteful of material. I could use steel for the rolls but silver soldering the "T" rings would not be easy for me in view of the amount of heat required. Any thoughts or ideas gratefully received.

Mike

You can get 145 OD x 70ID thick wall steel tube that you could cut them from, bit of work but less that cutting from a solid billet.

If you could get hold of some 5.5" ERW steel tube then a standard Sievert burner will get it hot enough to silver solder some laser cut or trepanned steel "washers" into place I've done that OK

If you go down the aluminium route and don't expect to do much in the way of running then JBWeld would be an option to build up the wheels. Unless you can find a thick wall tube and cut from solid but 5.5" is between the common 5 & 6 ODs available.

Cutting from a slice of solid steel or aluminium bar is another option, stich drill out the waste in the middle and use for something else than just turn the two tee legs as one with the rim

Not really Mike. Back in 1981 the was a 3/4" scale traction called Modular that was serialised in the mag, but the rear wheels for that were 41/2" dia.

This at Stationroad Steam may help, it looks to be based on a scaled down Minnie looking at the boiler pump pad with some significant simplification.

lumium is With a steam roller there a number of different types of rear roll construction in full sze,a lot of rollers for a start only used a single T ring as there was a lot less strain on a roller wheel compared to a traction engine, the spoke fixing to the rim varied,some cast in some rivetted and a few were bolted,this made rim replacement easier,spoke making can be a bit long and tedious,but thats what model engineering is all about.Now some makers in the later years of production after WW1 started using six spoke wheels,the hub and spokes were in one piece and bolted to the rim,Marshalls and Wallis & Stevens used plate wheels with circular holes cut in the plates,and this practice continued when both of theses makers started making ic engined rollers. so lots of choice, Should you wish to make a spoked rim then either get sawn off aluminium billets and machine either a single or double spoke flange,you might say a lot of waste material but it would only be a piece of ali say 4 inch dia and the wheel thickness,so easy to do and cheaper than castings.Or you could go for machining a plain rim from tube then then machine a recess in the rear of the rim to take another piece a smaller dia tube ,machine it into an angle rim and press or bond it or lightly press it in place with some small rivets to make sure it would not come apart, I would go for the single angle ring with spokes bolted in place, though I would go for machine the whole thing in one piece as I always try to make parts from solid, If you decide to make a double ring with rivetted spokes its not easy to form good rivet heads and if the rivets are hit too hard the ali can split. Castings in aluminium will crack even easier as I found out many years ago. Aluminium is a lot easier to machine particuarly as this would be a first attempt, My choice would be a roller based on a Marshall with flat steel wheels and make the model with machined from solid stee rims. Have a look at the photos of steam rollers on various web sites to see the various wheel types.

Just to say thanks to you all for your suggestions - they will be most helpful when I get my thinking cap on!

Mike#]

Having failed to locate steel tubing of the right size for my proposed 1" steam Roller, I have managed to find suitable aluminium tubing. If the rolls are left in the "raw" I feel it will look a bit toy like with shiny silver rolls! Is there any way aluminium can be treated to get more of a grey colour? Paint wouldn't stand up to the wear on the surface of the rolls. Many thanks for any help.

Mike

Gritblasting will leave a dull matt grey. If it is display only some thinned rust colour paint would give it that rusty silver sheen of the real thing.

Martin

Edited By Martin Johnson 1 on 10/03/2023 13:00:46