Tooling rail

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I wanted to ask a few of you with a lathe and mill your opinions on this. There is a small need for very low profile rail say .045" and .030" that are not available anywhere. Code 45 would be just about right for a lot of mainline trackage while code 30 would work well for branch lines. Both have potential for HOn3 HOn30, while code 30 would look good for Z scale.

One can order nickel-silver wire in various sizes, but none have a rail shape. My question would be how you create that rail profile? Here are two ideas. What would work better?

1. A basic rail shape cut into a block of tool steel. The shape would gradually taper to the final desired contour. Wire rail stock would be sharpened at one end, threaded through the tool and pulled through using torque and speed so that the wire will not pull thinner after exiting the block.

2. Two steel rollers each have half a rail imprint cut into them. Rollers are placed in a jig with a hand crank. Rail stock would be fed through the rollers and the clamping pressure would shape the rail as it is cranked through.

[Lemosteam]

Waiting for @narrowminded here, but I don't think you could get to the final shape in a single pass in either case.  Also rolling would force the material to in the exact direction you don't want it to go making for taller rail than what you started with, unless of course additional rollers wer added, forcing the material to elongate along the material's length.

A draw tool would be difficult to pull the material thru without snapping, I would think, unless very light cuts were made, still requiring multiple tools. 

Maybe an extrusion die...

[peteski]

I recall a similar discussion on TRW about this very same subject. DKS looked at several options and IIRC, none were financially viable for a small run of the rail.  You should be able to search for that thread (I'm too lazy to do it myself).

[jmlaboda]

What with code 40 being available why would you want code 45?  The difference would be minimal at best and could basically negate the need for the other.

As for code 30, while it would likely be great if some were available to be honest we probably wouldn't want it since even some of the finest flanges might have problems with it... not that it is ever likely to happen.

[GaryHinshaw]

I recall a similar discussion on TRW about this very same subject. DKS looked at several options and IIRC, none were financially viable for a small run of the rail.

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31522.msg350399#msg350399

Isn't ME rail already code 43?

[nkalanaga]

We need a mid-size rail for the same reason HO needed code 83.  55 is too large, and 40 is too small, especially for diesel-era mainlines.

Commercial rail is drawn just like wire, so the first method would work, and wire was hand-drawn for centuries before we mechanized the process.  Whether it would be worth the trouble is another matter.

I wonder what rail the 2mm folks in England use?  Would any of it be the right size/shape for N scale?

[wcfn100]

As Gary mentioned,  what we like to call code 40 is really code 43 which would be about code 80 in HO.

I'm all for code 30-35, I'd even help fund it.  Any NMRA compliant wheel will work with it.

Jason

[narrowminded]

Trying to roll that in a simple die would not give you satisfactory finishes.  Bulges where you didn't want them and/ or a parting line where the rollers meet, requiring some kind of second operation to remove that.  A more complex die might do it but the costs would be.......  a LOT.  It would need several passes and probably need to be annealed at some point, maybe more than once, between the passes.  That's not something I know for a fact, but know for a fact that it's a concern, and if it were my job it's an area I'd look into early in the project.

I do think that would be a drawing or extruding job.  Being approximately a balanced part and not needed in 1000 ft. coils, it might extrude better than draw but I'd leave that up to the experts.  It's expensive in die and setup/ machine time but it's very INexpensive once up and running.  A code 30 rail, just guesstimating, would yield somewhere over a hundred feet of rail per cubic inch of material so a cubic foot would get you 30 some MILES of rail.  You can see where it would be cheap once up and running but the tool and setup costs are high.  Still, at a few cents in material per foot, and a few more cents in dies if running volume, yet able to get upwards of a dollar or so a foot, there's room to make money IF you can get at least some demand. 

Even at $50,000 for dies, if you ran a cubic foot of material, that's 200,000 feet or so of rail, it's still only a quarter a foot.  The dies are probably not nearly that high for a simple rail shape (half or less?) but that's not my area and the die may be more complex than I'm guessing.  But the material at $3 per pound, say 530# pounds for a cubic foot, would only be $1600, or less than a penny a foot.  Then I go and see that code 40 rail is available in 1.5' lengths at $.85 a piece and I say.... yeah, I can see that. Especially if someone committed to the up front costs.  It's only a penny or two in raw material.

But you only want how many feet?  Do some math and see what it will cost ya'.   Then do a search and get an extruding price for real.  They'll want a drawing.

Here's one that a quick search kicked out.  They claim to do shorter run nickel silver extrusions.  Just guessing, I don't think it's something you could fund with a group buy but it might be viable for someone to make a smaller business of it.  And if you persue that I'd be curious to hear how it works out. http://www.deecometals.com/custom-metal-extrusions/nickel-silver-extruded-profiles

[hegstad1]

Crowdsourcing?

[Cory Rothlisberger]

Cutting rail is a very complex and time consuming process. You could almost call it a "science", but everyone has their own methods. It's also a very "top secret" process between suppliers. As in, I've been yelled at to put the camera away on multiple occasions.

As for the machine, it's a very, very slow and messy process. It's not just two rollers that form the rail. The machines I've seen our suppliers use involve three or four pairs of forming rollers in a row. Even after that, there's the process of straightening out the rail which involves another handful of smaller roller bearings that are constantly adjusted, vertically and horizontally. Overall, machines themselves typically end up being about 10 feet long. The overall floor space required for the process is probably 20' feet 6'. This is just my experience of course. I'm sure there are other processes that I've yet to see that have different space requirements.

[Lemosteam]

Great insight @Cory Rothlisberger  and what I suspected (without giving it away).  Had completely forgotten about a straightening process to make the rail compatible with the molding process.

[garethashenden]

We need a mid-size rail for the same reason HO needed code 83.  55 is too large, and 40 is too small, especially for diesel-era mainlines.

Commercial rail is drawn just like wire, so the first method would work, and wire was hand-drawn for centuries before we mechanized the process.  Whether it would be worth the trouble is another matter.

I wonder what rail the 2mm folks in England use?  Would any of it be the right size/shape for N scale?

The 2mm Association has code 40 Bullhead rail and code 40 Flatbottom rail. The flatbottom is generally the same profile as typical North American rail. I just measured some with calipers, it' 0.044" tall. My understanding is that the Association owns the dies used to produce it's rail and that it is made from round wire. There is also 0.030" high strip available, intended mainly for narrow gauge.
Here's a comparison between Bullhead and Flatbottom:

[nkalanaga]

Thank you!  It looks like C40 is the smallest available.

Has anyone contacted Special Shapes?  They do 1/32 inch brass shapes, nickel silver is a type of brass, rail is just another shape, they should be able to make it.  Whether they would, and how much it would cost, are another matter.

[peteski]

Nick,
I don't think that Special Shapes does any custom work - just the shapes they sell. ANd according to their website (and my examination of their offerings), they mill those shapes.

Special Shapes Company for the past 60 years has been producing and supplying specialized brass shapes needed for modeling craftsmen.  Our structural shapes are milled to tight tolerances in order to meet the smallest and most difficult of scale models.

[Chris333]

If you really want it contact Micro Engineering and ask them what it would cost to tool it up. Perhaps part or parts of it are already part of their current rail codes. Just guessing. But they make their own stuff here in the US.