Help with Romford type wagon wheel bushings

[Biscuits]

Hello

I have a number of used 00 Romford type wheels. These sit on a 1.96 mm diameter axle, some of which have been shortened by a previous owner. If I try and remove the wheels from the axle, with a view to mounting them on a new axle then the small plastic (nylon?) bush that insulates the wheel disintegrates. Is it possible to purchase these bushes separately - if so who can supply them or is there a similar material that can be used? I'd hate to throw the wheels away for the sake of a small piece of plastic. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

[Mountain]

I am thinking along the same lines but in making my own wheels. I do recall the old ways where they used to wrap paper and use araldyte or a similar glue. An early way of insulating drive wheels of 0 gauge models to adapt them to 2 rail running was to get a mini grinding wheel or a cutting disc, and cut a few spokes at a time in a straight line, and fill the cut gaps with araldite glue ad work around the spokes a few at a time until the wheel was done.
I have also been considering using wire insulation or something along those lines.
I have used resin but the issue with resin is that it shrinks slightly so it will need glueing in if they come loose as they age. I have made wheels using rivits as tyres and resin filled in inside it which did work... Thoug they were small wheels and the axles I used were old weathered bicycle spokes so I could do with polishing the axles up because the small diameter wheels needed something with less friction to turn. (I can now in theory form pinpoint axles to solve this issue though I have never tried!)

It is interesting if anyone else has come up with ideas. One idea... If I had some suitable plastic it could be turned down in a minilathe in theory. Not tried making anything like this as yet.

[Bufferstop]

I found them once but it's a while ago and I can't remember who had them, so don't give up the search. Have you tried Peter's Spares, it would be worth a phone call. It's the sort of item they may get made, but they have to know people are looking for them.
BTW do you or might you use magnetic uncoupling, even if it's only a chance you will, use brass axles I cut my own from 2mm (nominal) brass rod from Eileen's Emporium. I turn the pinpoints on them in a drill chuck clamped horizontally, using a flat Swiss file.

[Biscuits]

Hello

Thank you for your kind replies. I'm going to give this tubing a go

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-5mm-ID-PVC ... 2749.l2648

With the inside diameter of 1.5mm I'm hoping that the 'stretch' will thin it to a reasonable size.It may be possible to create small bushes or failing that insulate the whole axle and slide the wheels on. I may discover that the outside diameter is too large.

I'll let you know how I get on.

In terms of axles I'm using triang steel pinpoint ones with wheels removed from wagons. These are a tad oversize but with a polish and light sand in a rotary drill can be reduced to the requisite 1.96 mm diameter. I've challenged myself to make something decent out of the old plastic triang wagon chassis - if it turns out to be a disaster then I've only wasted 50p!

[Bufferstop]

The old Triang wagon chassis has the buffer height around 1mm too high, it seems to have been introduced to accommodate the excessively deep wheel flanges when the went from 10m to 12mm nominal diameter wheels moulded on the axle instead of the split wheels on a steel axle. There's not a simple solution to it, if you use 10mm wheels the coupler is too low, and the axle boxes are so low they look rather stupid. Over the years I've rooted out and replaced all of my specimens on these chassis.

[Bigmet]

I have a number of used 00 Romford type wheels. These sit on a 1.96 mm diameter axle, some of which have been shortened by a previous owner. If I try and remove the wheels from the axle, with a view to mounting them on a new axle then the small plastic (nylon?) bush that insulates the wheel disintegrates...

I have removed and replaced many Romford wheels, in order to either put them on ready pinpointed axles salvaged from plastic or 'other*' wheelsets, or to cut the long Romford 'bullnose' ended axles down to standard 26mm over pinpoints before replacement of the wheels. The insulator is brittle so has to be handled very carefuly, but most survive. Once set to gauge I reinforce with a tiny bead of Araldite run around the inside edge of the insulator.

I suspect that part of the problem may be the cut down ends of the axles. These need to be rounded off and very smooth if they are not to score the insulator, which will definitely provoke failure as the wheel is taken off the axle.

I am not aware any spare insulator supply, this is a product long out of production. You can try PVC wire insulation from twin and earth, but getting the wheel truly concentric is a matter of luck in my experience, even if the plastic o/d is trued up on the axle before the wheel is fitted, as the PVC doesn't reliably resist deformation in the wheel fitting operation.

*Many of my old Romford wagon and coach wheels are now on the excellent stainless steel pinpoint axles of MGW wheelsets. The plastic centre moulding of many - not all - MGW wheels has proved to not be dimenionally stable, and the wheels slide about on the axle. But fitted on a DIY slightly over 2mm axle these can be made good. By such bodges the better items among my 50 and more y.o. model railway gear is kept going...

[Bigmet]

I've challenged myself to make something decent out of the old plastic triang wagon chassis - if it turns out to be a disaster then I've only wasted 50p!

Best uses: a grounded van on its underframe, buffers, W irons, brake tackle all cut off, a tank wagon with buffers removed and the running gear concealed in a concrete spill containment bund, as a static storage tank.

As already remarked its problems all stem from the frame being overheight - more like 2mm in my opinion - which is very apparent when a scale model buffers up, and the 'growth' is spread throughout the W irons so thay have to go, and once there, you are better off with a kit wagon chassis. I have made quite a lot of use of various plastic kit wagon chassis, most recently those from Parkside, and would suggest these are a better bet if you need wagon underframes.

[Bufferstop]

I was being conservative when I said around 1mm, most of my comparisons being with other models of similar quality ie former Hornby Dublo, Airfix Mainline etc. I suppose getting out the ruler and taking measurements against scale may well reach 2mm. Many of which have switched stables a number of times. I was lucky to come by a few Peco chassis kits a couple of years ago, which helped remove the last few from the roster. I also performed some drastic surgery on the chassis of a pair of Hornby four-wheel coaches, cutting off everything above the bottom web of the solebar channels, and re attaching new bufferbeams. I kept reducing the height of the cantrail in reserve, just in case the overall reduction in height wasn't enough.

[gppsoftware]

Markits is probably the supplier you need to contact: http://www.markits.com/
Their website looks a bit like a 'my first attempt at a website', but email them and I'm sure they will be able to help.

On the shortening of axles, this is something I have done in the past as well. I did this on Lima DMU's because so called 'Lima length' axles from Gibson and the like were too short. The next best thing was to make exact fits myself by grinding Romford axles down.