Squeaking ConCor/Kato S-2 Northern

[peteski]

Wow Max!  You sure take this hobby to the Nth level!  If polishing the wheel thread completely eliminates the squeaking then you will have found out the cause. Nice detective work.

Was that occasional squeak really all that bothersome?  Real train often squeal too.  They make all sorts of metallic sounds.  Reduce those sounds 160 times and you probably end up with squeaks.   I'm also curious if polished wheels will lose some traction.  Also, how long will they remain in a polished state while running? I guess we'll find out.

[mmagliaro]

This may be a dumb question, but won't "super-polishing" your drive wheels effect the engine's traction? i.e. ability to pull?

Mark (also) in Oregon

Not a dumb question at all.  But no, since driver #4 has a traction tire, 99% of the engine's pull comes from there.  Polishing
the front 3 drivers should not affect pulling at all.  In fact, they are already way smoother than they were and the engine still pulls like a bull, as I would expect.

[mmagliaro]

Wow Max!  You sure take this hobby to the Nth level!  If polishing the wheel thread completely eliminates the squeaking then you will have found out the cause. Nice detective work.

Was that occasional squeak really all that bothersome?  Real train often squeal too.  They make all sorts of metallic sounds.  Reduce those sounds 160 times and you probably end up with squeaks.   I'm also curious if polished wheels will lose some traction.  Also, how long will they remain in a polished state while running? I guess we'll find out.

That's how I always justified it.   

But sometimes, depending on temperature and such, it would really start bugging me.    The way it is now, it is much less bothersome.  The frequency and volume of the sound is way down.  But I'll give it a go with the 2000 grit and see what happens.

[central.vermont]

You could always do as what my mechanic has told me to do about a persistent rattle. "If you just turn up the radio." 

Jon

[mmagliaro]

After one go with 2000 grit, the sound is again massively reduced.  Now there are just 2 or 3 brief "chirps" around the layout.
So clearly, I am on the right path (notice, I did not say 'track'...) with this.

The driver treads are still not perfect.  I can still see a few faint score lines on them.  I am pretty confident that if I can get those
polished out, all the noise will go away.  We shall see.

[peteski]

I'm curious:   Is the driver's tire made from solid nickel-silver, or is all the polishing cutting through the silver-colored plating and exposing the gold color of brass (the tire is plated brass)?

[mmagliaro]

Interesting point, Peteski.  No, the sanding/polishing has not exposed any brass whatsoever.  So I suspect
that the treads are one solid type of metal, whether that be nickel silver or something else.

This engine always was an "odd duck" with its coined brass frame, so it wouldn't surprise me if the drivers were made
from something unusual.   I have lightly sanded and blackened drivers many times and never had this
behavior, so it does seem like the metal must be something "special".

Bear in mind, however, that these drivers are not the original ones.  They came out of an old-generation
Kato/Concor GS4 (so I could get the teardrop hole pattern). 

[Doug G.]

Maybe they're some of those ultra rare titanium drivers Con-Cor sold at Jim Fitzgerald's (RIP) urging. Just kidding.

Some brass is so close to silver that it's hard to tell the difference between nickel silver plating and the brass when you break through when the brass is still fresh before oxidation.

Some of the old Rivarossi diesel drivers are that way.

Doug

[peteski]

And then there is the old Arnold Rapido: I turned down flanges on a GG1 and another European electric loco model. Those wheels were made from plated steel - the flange edge that I turned started rusting after a while!

[mmagliaro]

Well, after using the 2000 grit on the treads and flanges, and then moving to a Dremel with a felt wheel
and some auto body polishing compound, I have gotten rid of most of the squeaks around the layout, but alas not all.  The drivers are beautifully smooth, and the engine runs better than it ever has.

There are still a few spots where it squeaks, but they are very brief and faint compared to what it was doing.
So I'm afraid the 700 has bested me again for now.   "Ah, 700, my old nemesis, we shall meet again"  LOL

But since it runs better and is much quieter, I'm going to call it a draw before I damage it.

[SkipGear]

Max - must give you a hard time here.....real locos clang bang and squeak. You are diminishing the realism of the loco. 

[peteski]

Max - must give you a hard time here.....real locos clang bang and squeak. You are diminishing the realism of the loco. 

Exactly! 

[mmagliaro]

Max - must give you a hard time here.....real locos clang bang and squeak. You are diminishing the realism of the loco. 

Ha ha!   Yes, Tony.  In fact, Peteski and others have pointed this out to me on other occasions, and I have
"looked the other way" on the sound myself over the years.  But you'll all have to trust me on this.
The old squeak was like nails on a chalkboard when it did it.  It was pretty harsh.   Now, it's much
more of a "scale squeak" and is not objectionable.

[Palouse51]

Now, it's much more of a "scale squeak" and is not objectionable.

And with that, Max has built scale wheel squeel into his trains without the need for sound decoders. 

[Doug G.]

I understand, Max. It all depends on the squeak, though. When the brakes were squeaking on one of my Hudsons, it drove me batty because it was too cyclical and constant and that's not realistic. Real railroad noises tend to be random like the metallic zinnnnggggs from brakes against wheels, for instance.

My Big Boy very occasionally squeaks a bit but it's very seldom and random so I leave it alone. I know it's lubricated OK so I'm not worried about wear (although I DO wonder where the heck it's coming from). If it gets worse, however, I will investigate.

Some of my really old RoCo-built freight cars (A1G, Minitrix, etc.) squeak a bit as the plastic in the journals have developed a powdered plastic coating from wear and the axle ends, which also have the powder on the ends of them, squeak while turning in there. I clean them and lube with LaBelle 106 if they get too bad.

Doug