Dapol wheels

[Bufferstop]

Looking at the two wheels in the photo they appear to be around the same thickness but the tyre tread on the Dapol wheel looks narrower whilst the flange is thicker. They could probably be reprofiled using a power drill and files.

[Dad-1]

As I said earlier the FINAL engineering solution is to remove flanges from the central
axle of the Dapol 6 wheel milk tankers. It is final, there is no going back, but you will
then have 100% reliable running and can forget.

I thought I'd run my milk tank on St Oval where I know from experience a 6 wheel tank
with flanges, even with tweaked B2B measurements will de-rail. The route has 3 set track
points and two 180 degree turns of 1st radius. Perfect flangeless running every time !!

Can you honestly see that the flanges are missing ?



It took about an hour of careful filing and a finish with wet-n-dry paper.



You do need to take great care not to damage the existing tyre although the wet, wet-n-dry will
take just the surface away. The wheel set continues to have enough friction from rail contact to
continue to revolve. Job done, never needing to be re-visited.

Geoff T.

[RAF96]

My Dapol tank wagon kit came with plastic and metal wheels.
I filled the tank body with old nuts for weight but it still runs crap, so it sits in a siding for its sins.

[Richard Lee]

You could try changing the outer 2 sets of wheels. I bought a Dapol-made "Polegate Treacle Mines" 6-wheeled tanker a couple of years ago. It derailed on a 30" radius curve which had transition curves. After a Google search to see if anyone else had had problems with Dapol 6-wheeled tank wagons I tried changing the outer wheels. Instant success! The really weird thing is that I replaced them with Dapol wagon wheels that I had bought a pack of. [I seemed to remember reading that they had used funny wheels for the tank wagons.)

[End2end]

"If you want something done quickly, get a lazy man to do it"
I just removed the middle wheelset.
I will go back and have a look at the B2B's as I have aquired another 6 wheel tanker since then, both Dapol limited editions.
Thanks
End2end

[D605Eagle]

I wonder if the 6 wheeled tank derailing issue is down to Dapol 12mm wheel flange depth? I noticed they are very very shallow. I recently bought a Stanier 68ft 12 wheel dining coach and to try and keep it the same height as my other stock I fitted Dapol 12mm disk wheels, and it just derailed everywhere. I changed them for Hornby 12.6mm discs which have a deeper flange and no derailing anywhere. I find these Dapol wheels are fine for 4 wheeled wagons, but not much use for anything else.